Dream's Brink
by Elarix
Summary: A young Fox McCloud is forced to come to terms with his father's death in the vivid dream world of Infranimus, a reality that hauntingly mirrors the real one. Parodies several video games and movies.
1. Drifting

**Dream's Brink**

**Chapter 1: Drifting**

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><p><em>"With any Sort of Certainty" - Toh Kay<em>

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><p>The world around Fox was dark. The dull gray walls were swept with wind, rippling as if they were liquid. The shadowed corners of the room sparkled with miniscule stars of light, as if they were at the very edge of his consciousness. All in all, the whole scene seemed like a fragile illusion, or a pile of leaves that could be blown away with the slightest breeze. But in Fox's mind, he was trapped in an inescapable prison. To him it was <em>very<em> real.

Fox gasped; the room changed and swirled around him, melding into a bedroom all too familiar to him. Curtain covered windows appeared on the walls, a desk filled with trinkets, books, and dishes occupied one corner, and a large bed took center stage at the middle of a wall. Curious, Fox crept over to the bed and its occupant. A middle-aged, female fox lay sleeping beneath the covers, chest slowly rising and falling with each breath. Fox struggled to climb onto the bed, not because it was abnormally large, but because _he_ was small. The sleeping vulpine moaned as Fox settled down, sitting on the edge and facing her. When he slipped his small paw into hers, the fox slowly awakened, turning her head to see him.

"Good morning, Fox. I haven't seen you all day."

Already, Fox could feel tears welling up in his eyes. "Mom?" he whimpered, "Are you going to be all right?"

Vixy McCloud attempted to comfort her son by giving him a warm smile. "It's hard to say this Fox, but... no. There's no way to stop what's happening to me. The doctor's are doing everything they can, sweety, and the one who did this to me has been dealt with."

Fox's head fell down, and his ears drooped as he swung his legs back and forth over the side of the bed. "I don't care about what happens to him; I only care about you. I want you to get better, mom."

Vixy sat up, reaching her arm out and lifting Fox's face with it. "I know, and daddy wants me to get better, too. But you have to let go. You have to learn how to say goodbye."

Letting out a sob, Fox buried his head in his mother's arms, wetting her nightgown with his tears. "I don't want you to go, mom!" he repeated over and over again, "I don't want you to go!"

Vixy quietly shushed Fox, rocking him back and forth. "Oh Fox, I had so many dreams for you. I just wanted to watch you grow up and become a fine young man just like your father, become a mercenary and bravely defend the Lylat..." she trailed off, reaching for an ornament that adorned her desk. It was a violet flower encased in a crystal shard. As she absentmindedly stroked it, she continued, "I wanted to see you bring home a girl for yourself, and one day, I would finally have grandchildren of my own." She set the ornament down, and stared out the window at the muffled blue light that slowly seeped in.

As Fox looked up at his mom's face, he noticed she had cried a tear of her own and was sniffling. He sat up and put his arms around her, as best as his small form allowed him to. "It's okay, mom. I promise I will grow up and be just like daddy. I promise!"

Turning her head back to face Fox, Vixy smiled once again. "No Fox, you don't have to be like daddy. You can be whoever you want to be. As long as you do that, you'll make me happy." There was an abrupt knock at the door, and she said, "Oh, that must be the doctor." She reached down and dried Fox's tears with her nightgown's sleeve. "I'm sorry, Fox, you have to go now. You have to say goodbye for now."

Fox felt himself being pulled backwards by an inexplicable power, forcing his and his mother's intertwined arms to slip away from each other. "But I don't know if I will ever see you again!"

Vixy's eyes sparkled with stars as she answered. "I'll be with you forever, Fox, in your dreams."

Fox reached out with his hand towards his mother and the perpetual bed that he could never have her without, struggling against the ensnaring force until he was finally pulled out of the room entirely, and into the light.

* * *

><p>Fox gasped as he was suddenly brought to consciousness again. Looking around him, he remembered he was riding in the backseat of a car along a suburban road on the outskirts of Corneria City. The massive skyscrapers the city was known for adorned the distance, blocking the dull sunrise that was slowly making its entrance above the horizon. The sun cast warm rays of light across the white, feathery clouds that covered the sky, shining bright enough to make Fox flinch and close his eyes.<p>

He caught a glimpse of his father looking back in the rear-view mirror. "You okay, buddy? You looked like you dozed off." It was hard to read his father's expression because of his ever-present sunglasses, but even at his young age, Fox was able to discern it was one of worry.

"Yeah, I just fell asleep for a little while, that's all." Fox sniffed and looked away from the rear-view mirror, choosing instead to watch the passing scenery as it flew by. Other cars, buildings, and pedestrians whizzed by in a constant stream with hypnotizing effects. The only thing that broke the repetition of scenery was a group of construction workers in gray hard-hats that were bustling around along the side of the road, working to repair some sort of underground damage, or bury telephone and LAN lines beneath the sidewalk as if they were burying a coffin. The scene quickly passed, and Fox soon found himself staring at the same boring terrain again. Unable to preoccupy himself in any other way, Fox began to think. Finally, he settled on doing what most other seven-year-old children did best:

Asking questions.

Glancing in the mirror again, he saw his father's same expressionless face stare ahead at the road. He determined that now was a good time to approach him.

"Daddy?" he began.

"What is it, son?" James asked warmly back.

"Can I ask you a question?"

His father smiled, and he knew he had fallen into his little trap. "But you've already asked me a question."

"_Daaad_! Why do you always do that?"

James merely grinned as he watched the road. "I'm sorry, Fox. Go ahead, ask your question."

Fox sat up straight in his car seat, tugging at his seat-belt. "Well... I've been wondering..."

"Come on, Fox, out with it."

"What is death?"

Surprised by the question, James nearly lost control of the steering wheel and crashed into the car beside them. As indignant horns blared, he finally gained control of the steering wheel and set the car back on track, resuming his same emotionless stance. Father and son sat in complete silence for several minutes straight, Fox waiting patiently for an answer.

Ending the silence, James coldly replied, "Death is the vengeance of God." Fox noticed his father's knuckles turn white as they gripped the steering wheel tighter. His true expression always hidden beneath his glasses.

"But what about mom?" Fox asked, knowing full well that bringing her up was a bad idea. "That wasn't vengeance."

James waited for a few seconds, a scowl forming on his face. "No. That was murder."

Again, the car ride sank back into a tense silence that dragged on for minutes on end until James sighed and spoke again. "I'm sorry, Fox. I got a little angry there. Just... ignore that. I have a lot on my mind. But I don't think I really answered your question. Can I help any more?"

"Well, what happens to a person when they die?"

"There are many different answers for that, Fox. But I think a person dies when their soul leaves their body."

"What happens to them after that?"

"Their body is buried here in the earth, and their soul flies on to some other place."

"Where is that?"

"Who knows. No one who's ever died has lived to tell the rest of the world. Some say it goes to heaven, maybe hell, or some place in between. Some say it disappears for awhile before being reborn into another body."

"But... which one is it?"

"Like I said, no one actually knows where the soul goes." Glancing outside, he added, "Just like we don't know where the sun goes when it's night. You can't see it at night, but every day it comes back again."

"Which one do you believe?"

"I hope for the best; heaven."

"And if I die," Fox concluded, "will I see mom in heaven?"

"That is the one thing I _am_ sure of, Fox."

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><p>The sun was still climbing its way into the sky when they came to a stop at Corneria's military spaceport. Father and son left the car and took a short, brisk walk towards the runway and hangar area. James was surprised but grateful when he found his and Peppy's arwings already stationed and ready to go. He nodded to a few workmen who immediately set about priming his ship for take off. Fox stood close to his father's side, his tall figure blocking the sun and casting a dark shadow over him, one that made Fox feel small and cold. James turned his head back and forth, the sunlight glancing off his glasses as he looked attentively for someone. Finally, he spotted Peppy Hare, who was just stepping out onto the spaceport's runway.<p>

After giving his teammate a quick wave, James knelt down beside Fox, taking both of his hands in his. "Now I want you to be strong while I'm gone, Fox."

"_Daaad_, do you really have to go?" Fox whined for the hundredth time that week.

"I'm sorry, buddy. We've been over this already. You know the answer."

"But it's my birthday next week!" Fox persisted.

"It's something I just have to do, kiddo. Andross has it coming to him. And when I come back, I'll have enough money to buy you the best birthday present you've ever seen. You just have to wait awhile."

"I don't care about a present! All I want is for you to be here."

James sighed as he broke eye contact with Fox and looked down at the ground. Finally, after summoning up enough courage, he looked back up again. "Fox, look. This is the last mission I'm going to be flying for a long time. After this, I can forget my job for awhile and spend my time with you. I'll be free for five years at least. How does that sound?"

After thinking it over for a minute, Fox reluctantly nodded. "As long as I can see you soon."

James smiled and patted his son on the back. "There's my boy!" After a quick glance at his and Peppy's arwings, he added, "Look, I have to go now, but I'll be sure to be back by the end of the week. Come on, a week isn't _that _long, is it? Besides, you'll have Slippy and Fara to keep you company."

"I'll miss you, dad," Fox said.

"I'll miss you too, son." With that, James stood up, grabbed his baggage, and walked over to his arwing while Fox moved to the side of the runway. He watched, helpless, as his father climbed inside the cockpit of his ship, and ignited the engines. With a loud whine, he began rolling down the runway, followed closely by Peppy. As his arwing picked up speed, Fox found himself instinctively chasing after it down the runway, struggling to keep pace. When his dad finally lifted off the ground, Fox slowed down, panting. He waved hopefully at his father, as he and his teammate's arwings slowly faded into the bright sky, becoming no more than two specks of black in a sea of blue and white.

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><p><strong>AN: Hello, and welcome to my new story, _Dream's Brink._ It's a little tale I cooked up while trying to combine certain images, inspiration from songs, and even dreams of my own. The result is this story. A lot of times, I feel like my writing process is like finding a bunch of inspiration from art, music, games, movies, and books, and then coming up with a Theory of Everything to combine them all into one story. I plan on working on this along side my other fic, and only time will tell which one I decide to work on more. So, I hope you enjoyed the first chapter, maybe shed a tear or two, and will keep on reading when the rest comes out.**

**Also, I've recently gone back and suggested a song at the start of each chapter.**


	2. Losing Reality

**Chapter 2: Losing Reality**

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><p><em>"Castle of Glass" - Linkin Park<em>

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><p>"Fox? Fox? <em>Fox James McCloud<em>!"

A sudden jab at Fox's side finally woke him up.

"Ouch! Hey! What the heck was that for?" Fox rubbed his smarting rib cage as he turned around in his desk chair to find a very guilty-looking Slippy holding a sharpened pencil. His amphibious friend pointed forwards, indicating the front of the classroom. Fox obliged, turning around to come face-to-face with his teacher.

"Oh. Uh, hi, Ms. Woodrow. Do you... uh... want something?"

The rather plump tabby cat glared down her thick glasses at Fox, face contorted in a judgmental stare. "I was asking you a question, Fox. Would you be so kind as to answer it?"

Fox gulped, mind racing to figure out what the current lecture had been while he was dreaming. As he cleared visions of arwings, stars, and laser fire from his head, he rapidly read the notes the teacher had written on the holo-board. Once he had identified the material, he quickly figured out the implied question, and even the answer.

"The pirates ended up uniting the entire Lylat System."

The teacher's expression was one of shock. However, she quickly recovered, sinking back into her original smug expression. "Correct. The leading powers in the Lylat, Corneria and the external planets like Aquas and Macbeth, knew they had to unite to exterminate the threat of the space pirates. Decades of inner conflict between Corneria and her former colonies were finally put to rest when they both faced the same enemy. This phenomena is called "The Common Enemy," and is seen countless other times throughout the history of the Lylat System. Very good, McCloud. I am glad to see at least _someone _in this class has been paying attention."

"But Ms. Woodrow, I haven't been paying attention."

His history teacher once again took on her surprised expression. "You _what_?"

"I already knew it. My dad flew in the pirate wars as a mercenary."

Ms. Woodrow's face slowly contorted into the pure image of rage as she spewed steam from her ears. "Fox McCloud!" she cried through her clenched teeth, "This is the last straw! You hear me? The last – "

In the nick of time, the bells rang, signaling the end of class for the lower school. As fast as they could run, Fox and Slippy gathered up their materials and raced out of the classroom a full twenty seconds ahead of the rest of the class. They didn't dare slow down until they had rounded the next corner in the hallway and had entered the upper school section of the complex. After a few more steps, Fox suddenly realized Slippy was no longer with him. Turning around, he noticed his young friend standing stock still at the end of the hallway, staring wide-eyed at the upper school area.

Rolling his eyes and sighing, Fox walked back over to Slippy. "Whatsamatter?" he asked.

Slippy gulped, shaking a bit. "D-d-don't you know that's the high school!"

"Of course I know, stupid!"

"Y-you're not afraid to go in there?"

"'Course not! I do it all the time."

Slippy began to nibble at his fingers, nervously. "But those are _big _kids!"

Pointing behind them, Fox said, "No matter how big they are, Ms. Woodrow is ten-times bigger. Oh come on!" Fox grabbed Slippy's arm and stubbornly dragged him across the threshold.

Once they were well into the area, Slippy relaxed more, realizing there was nothing really to fear. "You come here all the time?" he asked Fox.

"Yeah. For one thing, it's a short-cut to get to our lockers. For another, I like to hear what the big-kids talk about."

Slippy frowned. "Like what?"

"Well, like... I don't know, just listen in here as we walk by." The two slowed down, perking their ears up as they passed an open door to a seminar that was still going on. They were just able to catch a few sentences of the lecture:

"... in fact, the percentages of conscious verses non-conscious thought are rather striking. Studies have shown that only _five percent _of all thought is conscious, logical, and ordered. The rest, the ninety-five percent, is all non-conscious, hidden from our awareness. We simply do not know that it is going on. That's why dreams make no sense. For a brief time, our conscious and non-conscious thoughts collide, and our consciousness struggles to make sense of it all..."

"How can you even understand that?" Slippy asked in a whisper.

"I don't. I just get the gist of it."

"Then explain it too – "

Fox quickly shushed Slippy as they came upon another room.

"... admittedly, such reports are as common and unreliable as UFO sightings. But there is scientific proof. Death is not actually necessary for a person to have a near death experience. Instead, their heart merely stops while their brain continues to function. Truthfully, in most situations, death is surely immanent. To counteract this, the brain goes into a hyperactive state and begins thinking and processing things much faster, while at the same time experiencing seemingly random visions..."

When they had passed the second door, Fox asked Slippy, "Sounds cool, right?"

"At least I know why they separate elementary school and grade school. I'm not ready for any of that."

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><p>After the two had safely returned to their lockers, they grabbed their lunches and headed outside for recess. They left the school's cramped hallways to the wide open grounds covered in green grass, large fields for sports and carousing, playground sets, picnic tables, and groves of maple trees covered in red buds about to burst into vibrantly-colored leaves. It was near the end of spring, and everyone was preparing for the end of the school year. Fox's school was already setting up for the summer festival, a school-wide celebration that takes place on the first day of summer; tents, pavilions, and booths were being put together by faculty and parent volunteers who hurried around busily.<p>

"Grown-ups," Slippy scoffed as he observed all the hubbub around them. "Always busy doin' somethin'."

Fox shrugged, extricating his sandwich from his lunch bag. "Well, someone has to do it, and I rather it be them than us."

Slippy sighed in exasperation. "Do you always side with them?"

Fox thought back to several arguments with his dad. "No."

Changing the subject, Slippy nodded to Fox's sandwich. "What did your housekeeper make you this time?"

Fox peered at the sides of his sandwich, quickly identifying its contents. "Aunt Elsa made me tuna fish."

"Is she a cat?" Slippy asked.

"Yup."

"Figures..." Slippy trailed off.

"What's that supposed to mean!?" Fox asked, indignantly.

"Nothin'. Time to change the subject again."

"Humph. Talk about _me _siding with grown-ups. _You _always change the subject."

"And what was _that _supposed to mean?"

"Oh, nothin'. Let's talk about something else."

"Hey! That's changing the – " Slippy suddenly stopped, cracking a smile as he noticed Fox shaking with silent laughter. "It's not _that _funny."

Fox stopped laughing long enough to answer, "You're laughing too!"

Slippy had just taken a sip from his juice-pouch when Fox made the comment, causing himself to snort and squirt his apple-juice out of his nose, opening the door for another round of giggles. Once they had calmed down enough, their conversation returned to food.

"Does your housekeeper cook well?"

"Well enough so that I don't miss my dad's cooking."

"So... he's not back yet?"

Fox's mood darkened, immediately eliciting a frown. "No."

"I don't get it," Slippy said, "It's been a week since your birthday. Shouldn't he be back by now?"

"Just because he hasn't returned yet doesn't mean something happened too him," Fox stated, quite confidently.

"I wasn't saying anything," Slippy answered, defensively. "But... don't you miss him?"

"'Course I do. I'm sure he'll come back just in time for the summer festival. That's my wish."

"Everyone has their wishes. As for me, I just wish school would end... _fast_."

"That's what the summer festival is all about," Fox replied. "The end of school. Quite ironic, actually, that the school would celebrate it."

Slippy scratched his head. "What does 'ironic' mean?"

"Well," stuttered Fox, "It means... uh... it's hard to explain..."

"Sounds like a grown-up word," Slippy muttered, making Fox glare at him.

Suddenly, Fox's irritated expression shifted into that of fear. "Dang, they're here."

"That's another grown-up word. Doesn't your father teach you not to swear? But who's here?"

"Shhh!" Fox hissed, "It's Carver and his crew! Act natural and don't draw attention!"

When Slippy heard who it was, he started shaking uncontrollably, and hunched over his lunch to be as unnoticeable as possible. It didn't work; Carver knew full well where they were. Three dark shadows fell over the picnic table as Carver and his gang came to a stop around Fox and Slippy. Carver was a large sixth grader who was mature enough to shave. Flanking Carver on either side were two of his nameless cronies, a grizzled bulldog and another feline, both of which also shaved.

"Aw, look what we have here, fellas," he sneered with a smug grin on his face. "The super-hero and the super-nerd. Really McCloud, you shouldn't be seen with this twit. It's the kinda animal that would run off with Andross, right?"

Fox adopted an aggravated expression, though he kept his head down and said nothing. He knew better than to mess with a six grader ten times bigger than himself. The remark must have been particularly stinging to Slippy, who, as an amphibian, was thrown together with the same lot of reptiles who had been a part of the space pirates and were now siding with Andross. Slippy was a common target not only because of his species, but also because his father, Beltino Toad, had worked alongside Andross in a controversial arms company years before. Once Andross was banished to Venom, the company was ruined and attained a bad reputation, a shadow Slippy's father had never been able to escape.

"What do we got here?" Carver asked as he examined Slippy's sandwich. "Something out of Andross's laboratory?" He lifted the sandwich off of the table, sniffed it, then quickly recoiled and dropped it on the table, gagging in mock disgust. "Yuck! That stuff's worse than the sea of Zoness!"

"Only not as cool," his bulldog crony added.

"Gluten free bread, chemicals poured into some sort of green goop, everything as healthy as crap... what's wrong with you! You must have allergies to everything!" Carver continued to tease Slippy. Fox's friend looked up with pleading eyes, begging him for help.

"Better get this monstrosity out of here before it mutates into some form of bio-weapon!" Carver pinched his nose, using his free hand to gingerly pick up the sandwich and hurl it over to a nearby trashcan, missing by a few feet.

Fox snorted. "You missed."

One of Carver's ears perked up. "What's that, McCloud? I missed?" He grabbed Slippy's bottle of milk (dairy free), and threw it into the young vulpine's face. The bottle didn't burst, but it still dealt Fox the equivalent of a knuckle sandwich. "Didn't miss that time, did I?" Turning his attention back to the unfortunate Slippy, Carver continued to make fun of him. "You know, you should bring two bags to school from now on; one for your stink bomb of a lunch, and the other to cover your face. Here, you won't be needing it anymore for your lunch, will you?" Carver next picked up the rest of Slippy's lunch, contained in a brown paper sack, and dumped the contents over Slippy's head, who flinched as more healthy/allergy-free food cascaded down onto him. Once it was empty, Carver and his feline friend shoved the bag over his head. This elicited more laughter as his friends applauded what they considered to be creative bullying genius. Slippy began to whimper, a sign of weakness he had been fighting not to show for the past five minutes. He then tore the bag off his head and covered his face with his hands, starting to cry completely.

Fox quickly stood up, outraged at the direction their encounter was going. Noticing his abrupt action, Carver and his cronies looked at Fox, grinning because they had succeeded in angering him. "Watcha gonna do, Fox?" Carver teased him, "Bite my ankle? It's about all you can do at that height."

Fox bared his teeth in a scowl at the bully, but that was all he could do. As Slippy looked at him through his tear stained eyes, pleading for Fox to stand up for him, he realized he was just as helpless as Slippy. Resignedly, he backed away from the table. Carver grinned, then leaned down to whisper in Slippy's ear.

"See, he doesn't care about you, either. He's too scared to stand up for you. You better find some new friends, twit. Oh, wait, you never had any." His bulldog friend chuckled and gave him a high-five at his cliché jab.

Drying his tears bravely, Slippy glared back at Carver, and then, to Fox's surprise, turned to stare angrily at him. The betrayal and hate that Fox saw burning in Slippy's eyes caught him off guard, and his jaw dropped. "No, Slip, please – "

In a rage, Slippy flung all of the scraps of his lunch off of the table, stood up, and stomped away, turning his back on Fox, amid the applause of the bullying gang. Dejected, hurt, and disappointed at his failure to stick up for Slippy, Fox's ears drooped, and he slowly turned his back on the whole scene just as Slippy had done.

Carver and his cronies' insults became quieter and quieter as he walked away. He stared stubbornly at the ground, thinking about storm clouds and thunder and getting up in the morning and waiting in the rain for the school bus and any dark thoughts he could muster. Soon, it became more of a game than a mood, as Fox tried to keep himself in a glum attitude while at the same time staring at the green grass passing below his feet and not looking where he was going. Of course, even the act of playing a game was enough to lighten his mood.

As he stared at the ground, he noticed it change from blades of soft grass to yellowed chips of playground saw dust. Shadows of playing children flitted across the ground as he continued to walk. Suddenly, the seat of a swing came into his view. Before he had time to stop, Fox tripped over it, and soon found himself hanging from his stomach, halfway across the swing like an idiot. He quickly looked around to make sure no one had noticed his blunder. They had.

On the swing beside his, a young fennec fox was lazily swinging back and forth, intently staring at him. Fox's face immediately flushed under his fur, and he stared back at the ground.

"Hello, Fox," the girl cheerfully said.

"Hello, Fara," Fox mumbled back.

"What are you doing?" she asked, cocking her head curiously.

"Uh, well, just taking a swing."

"Like _that_?" Fara asked, doubtfully.

"Yup."

Fara continued to stare judgmentally at Fox and his unorthodox position, considering thoughtfully.

Shrugging her shoulders, she said, "Hmm. Seems fun." And with that, she turned around and hung herself from her stomach, mimicking Fox's posture, and then began to push herself back and forth with her feet. Fox decided to go along with it and pretend that he had meant to do that the whole time. So the two foxes awkwardly swung back and forth for a while, until their bellies began to chafe against the swings. Standing up, they looked around themselves and noticed they had attracted quit an inquisitive crowd of younger kids. Fox became more embarrassed than he had been before, but Fara just rolled her eyes and grabbed his hand.

"Come on, let's get away from them." She led Fox over to a less crowded area of the playground nearly devoid of other children. They stopped at the base of a large, wooden play-set covered in tarps, ropes, and ladders. The play set was designed to triple as both a pirate ship, a medieval castle, or a space ship, all of which whetted a young child's imagination.

"What do you want to play?" Fox asked Fara. "Wizards and goblins? Pirates and soldiers? Aliens and robots?"

Fara threw him a curve. "How about knights and princesses?"

Fox raised in eyebrow in confusion. "Knight and princess? What kind of a game is that?"

"You play as the knight, and I'll be the princess; you have to rescue me from the bad guys."

Fox was still confused.

"Come on! You really_ don't_ know how to play knights and princesses? How about all of those Mario games, or Legend of Zelda?"

"Oh, yeah!" Fox exclaimed, finally getting it. "So it's a medieval game!"

"It doesn't have to be," Fara quickly added. "It can be during any time! It just depends on what enemy you are rescuing me from; orcs, pirates, aliens, monsters, nightmares, you name it!"

"Where do we start?"

"Look, you can be the knight, and I'll be the princess," Fara nimbly climbed up a rope ladder to the top floor of the play set, "And an evil wizard has captured me and brought me too his castle!"

Quickly catching on, Fox said, "And he has an army of skeleton warriors to protect him! And I have to climb up his castle and defeat him! So it _is_ a medieval game, just with a princess at the end."

Fox was born a natural at the game. He ran around from ladder to ladder, struggling to climb each one. He fought waves of enemies as he scaled higher and higher; each time Fara was just an arm's reach away, but then a new foe would appear and push him back down to the bottom. Once the ladders, rock wall, rope pulley, and swing set had failed him, he decided on climbing the slide. And finally, after entering the castle, he victoriously claimed his prize, a quick but rewarding peck on the cheek from Fara.

"So, uh... now what?" Fox asked, rubbing the side of his muzzle.

"Now," Fara answered, "We do it again." And with that, she promptly shoved him back down the slide. At the end he fell unceremoniously onto the rough wood-chip ground. He slowly stood up, brushing specks of rubble off of the seat of his pants. "What do you mean, we do it again?"

"_This_ time, I've been captured by aliens," Fara replied, mischievously.

Shrugging, Fox said, "Alright. Sounds good to me," and he continued to repeat the process over again.

* * *

><p>By the time Fox had rescued Fara from evil knights, aliens, nightmarish monsters, and even more aliens, lunch time and recess were drawing to a close. At the moment, Fox was in the middle of saving Fara from a barbaric band of pirates. They had forced Fara to walk the plank, meaning she had shimmied all the way across the wooden bar that held up the swing set and was crying for help powerlessly at the far end. Once Fox had succeeded in boarding the play set (now serving as a pirate ship), he halted at the swing set bar. He eyed the obstacle, catching his breath from all of the physical exertion of fighting imaginary pirates.<p>

"Come on, Fox!" Fara called, "Don't abandon me now!"

"Whew," Fox panted, "I don't know about this one..."

"What do you mean?" Fara asked, with a hint of worry in her voice that was not just play-acting.

"I mean... it looks like a long way down," Fox said as he gazed over the edge. "And I'm getting pretty tired of this."

"You're tired of playing with me?" Fara asked, outraged.

"Well... yeah."

"I can't believe this!" Fara cried, suddenly sliding down the opposite end of the swing set. "If you were a real man, you would try to save me no matter what the odds!"

"Hey, look, I'm not going to do this all day! No one would!"

Fara turned around, sniffing and drying her eyes. "You... don't... care about me..."

"I didn't say that! I just don't want to play anymore."

That was the wrong thing to say. Fara burst completely into tears, wailing and sobbing as she ran away from their play set, drawing the attention of several other children around them. As she left, Fox reached out his hand for her, futily. When she disappeared from the playground, Fox slunk back down into the play set, his back pressing up against the wooden railing. Fara was the second friend he had disappointed in that day. How could it get any worse?

* * *

><p>After school let out for that day, the McCloud's family maid, a homely feline, picked Fox up from school and drove him home. As they were pulling into their cul de sac, something in his driveway caught Fox's attention. Sitting up in his car seat, he peered intently at the object, realizing it was the military class hover-car his father and Peppy Hare owned.<p>

"Aunt Elsa!" he cried, "Stop! Let me out! Father's home!"

"Hold your horses, Fox, don't jump out before the car stops!"

But Fox payed no attention to safety. As his maid slowed the car down, Fox hastily unbuckled his seat belt and swung the door open, hitting the ground running. He dashed all the way across the street, up his grass-covered lawn, and onto the front porch, heart beating and pulse racing in excitement. His father had been away a lot longer than the mission had called for, and even though he put on a hopeful expression for everyone else, he did worry that something had happened to him.

Finding the door unlocked, he flung it open, sprinting inside and dropping his school materials carelessly around the foyer. "Dad! Dad! I'm home!" he shouted. "You're finally back! I can't wait to..." Fox trailed off. In the hallway, he was not greeted by his father.

Instead, Peppy Hare was standing dejectedly before him, face down, unable to meet Fox's eyes.

He was in a horrible condition; the left side of his face was badly singed from fire, and a dried trail of blood that trickled down his forehead had stained his fur. It was obvious Peppy had made an attempt to cover for it, but it was a hasty attempt at that. Most of the blood and ashes had been wiped away with a wet cloth, but his wounds still showed. He also was wearing one of his finest suits instead of his usual flight jacket.

Black. He was dressed in black.

Fox's excitement ended. "Peppy? Wh... where's my dad?"

Peppy slowly looked up from the floor to stare Fox in the eye, but he could only manage it for a second. "I'm... sorry, Fox, but..."

"Where's my dad?" Fox repeated, already dreading the answer.

"Look, son... your father... he... we were betrayed." Peppy was struggling for words.

"What do you mean?" Fox asked apprehensively.

"Fox... your father is... dead."

Fox's face melted in horror. Slowly, his jaw fell and his ears drooped, his eyes glazing over in tears. "Why?" was all he could manage to say.

"We were betrayed by our other team member, that bastard, Pigma Dengar," Peppy said, spitting out Pigma's name in disgust. "We were on reconnaissance duty in Venom, but James saw it as an opportunity to hunt down Andross. While we were there, Pigma and Andross sprung a trap. James sacrificed himself... so that I could get out alive..."

"No..." Fox sobbed, already choking up with tears. "Why didn't you save him!?" he shouted, angrily.

"Fox, there was nothing I could do. James rescued me, and told me to take care of you from now on. I have to honor his sacrifice."

Fox covered his face with his hands, then attempted to dry his tears to no avail.

"I'm sorry, Fox." Peppy stepped over to Fox and placed his hands on his shaking shoulders.

"No!" Fox said louder. He lurched back from Peppy in anger. "NO!" he shouted again. He lashed out, slamming his fist into a glass vase of flowers. The vase fell off of its table, smashing into the ground and scattering water, shards of glass, and blue aquarium pebbles all over the brown wood floor.

"Please, Fox," Peppy begged, "We'll get you through this, I have to take care of you."

"I don't want you!" Fox shouted, his voice cracking with emotion, "I want my dad!" He spun around and dashed out the door, bumping into the maid just as she was coming in. He brushed past her and ran outside, ignoring Peppy's pleas.

* * *

><p>All Fox could do was cry and run.<p>

He ran for what seemed like miles for a young boy of his age. Down the street, between two neighbors' yards, into a wide open plane of golden grass, and into the woods were he so often went with Slippy and Fara, when they wanted to be alone.

Running made him remember an old story his mother used to tell him; a group of outcasts in the Lylat one day gave up on the System. They commandeered a suitable space ship, packed their bags, and then retreated into the deep, infinite void of space. They simply left all of their problems behind as they forged on, in hopes of finding a new world that would accept them.

His mother died before she could tell him the end. He never knew if they actually found it.

Entering into the forest, Fox plunged into the dark shade head first. He didn't care where he was going. He tripped over roots, stumbled over rocks, and slid on piles of wet leaves. Branches whipped by his face and spider webs caught onto his clothes. The sun was now completely gone, blocked out by an endless maze of the leaves and branches of the treetops.

In his blind haste, Fox suddenly found himself running straight over the side of a steep incline. He fell, hands flailing to catch a hold of anything, into a deep stream that passed through the woods. Within a fraction of a second, he was completely submerged in the water, and steadily sinking to the bottom. His lungs instinctively gasped for air, but only filled up with water. He tried to swim, but he had never learned how; his erratic thrashings only served to waste energy. Giving up, Fox turned face upwards towards the surface, watching streams of bubbles rise skywards. As the stream bed began to fade into blackness around him, Fox noticed that time was slowing down. The creek's water moved like black sludge, and the bubbles rising to the surface seemed more like lazy balloons on their journey to the infinite sky. Fox reached out his hand towards the surface, but now all he could see were swirls of dark vapor that rolled before his vision.

This was it. Fox truly knew what it felt like to die.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: An apology is a really bad way to start off a story, but here's one anyway. It's been, what, three weeks since I posted the first chapter of this story? Sorry about the time gap, but dem teachers have been layin' on da homework hard recently. It has come to the point were I must decide between writing and school, and I think I should put more effort into writing. And the past few times I have posted chapters have all been snow days. Guess what? Today was also a snow day. Let's try to break that habit and post regularly from now on. Finally, the story is going to take a very different turn from here, one much closer to it's namesake. No, it's not going to be the childhood days of Fox McCloud. That much, I can promise. Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and will be thoroughly surprised with the next one!**


	3. Infranimus

**Chapter 3: Infranimus**

**Or,**

**The Waking Dream**

* * *

><p><em>"The Forest" - Red<em>

_"Waves" - Overwerk_

* * *

><p><em>"<em>__Fox..."__

__Vixy's voice__

__echoed all around__

__the young vulpine. As__

__he futily searched for the__

__source of his mother's voice,__

__Fox was only blinded by the pure__

__white light coming from every angle.__

__"I'm here, mother," Fox replied in a calm voice.__

__"I... I wanted to ask you, Fox; do you remember your__

__birth and your death?" As Fox dwelt on her question, a brilliant__

__storm of swirling colors raced before his eyes, replacing the faceless__

__white light. Accompanying the images were thousands of sounds, voices, touches,__

__smells, feelings, and emotions. But above everything else could be heard the wailing voice__

__of an infant. "I remember one beginning, but many endings, uncountable endings... ____how __

__is it that I can see them all, lying before me like an ocean?" "Because you are__

__no longer bound by the chains of the universe; you are on the__

__outside of a box looking in." "But how did I get here?__

__How was I freed?" The light around Fox__

__grew warm, mimicking the smile__

__he knew his mother was__

__wearing. "Silly boy,__

__don't you know__

__the answer?__

__You died,__

__Fox."__

* * *

><p><em>Fox was drowning. That much he knew.<em>

_ He was being choked, strangled, by a dark, thick liquid, watching his life escape from his lungs in glittering orbs that floated skywards. The distant light from above shone in dim rays, distorted by the lazy motion of the water. As he watched everything play out before him, he realized time was getting slower and slower, until it came to a complete stop; the light vanished, and the rising bubbles froze mid-flight, now merely glittering jewels amidst the blackness. But they weren't bubbles anymore..._

_ They were stars._

_ Fox became aware that he was once again moving, this time at a dizzying rate. He flailed around helplessly as he fell through empty space, wind whipping at his clothes and drawing tears from his eyes. __As much as he tried to fly, there was nothing he could do. He oriented himself face downwards, trying to catch a glimpse of the ground in the inky blackness. He was able to make sense of his direction because__ that half of the sky was devoid of stars. As he squinted his eyes, he was able to make out a sea of dark branches rising towards him faster than a train. Eyes widening in panic, he flipped around in mid-air, not wanting to see the ground when he hit._

_ When he finally hit the forest canopy, his fall was broken by a network of black branches, weathered and twisted into strange, groping hands. He fell, deeper and deeper into the forest, breaking __branches__ on the way down, until he fell through another ten feet of open air and painfully hit the ground._

__What's wrong? ___Fox thought to himself, ___don't you always wake up before you hit the ground in a dream? Maybe you have to die to actually wake up... unless this isn't a dream at all...__

_ Groaning in pain, Fox rolled onto his belly and rubbed his aching body. He tried to climb up onto all fours, but he immediately winced in pain and fell flat on his stomach again. He was obviously in no condition to walk, and his head kept spinning. Whether it was from the dizzying fall or from the disorienting dream itself, Fox could not tell. __All he new was that he had to move, to at least escape the clouded forest he was in._

_Seeing no other option, Fox placed one hand in front of the other and began to crawl._

_ The forest didn't make sense; the inky blackness was dotted with glimmers of dour red that seemed to come from nowhere. Roots twisted in unpredictable patterns, sometimes stretching as far as three tree-__lengths__ from their sources, or even reaching to the treetops. Dried, brownish leaves not only carpeted the rough dirt floor, but also hung suspended in mid air, shifting or swirling away in little eddies as he disturbed them. And the whole scene around him was slightly blurred as if he were looking at it through water. The total effect the woods produced upon him was enough to make him hide his face beneath his arms so as not to get dizzied anymore than he already was._

_Fox stubbornly pressed on, crawling and crawling towards what he hoped was the edge of the forest. As he continued, he thought he noticed the red glow reflecting off of the trees slowly get brighter, but it could have been his imagination._

_ Of course, it was his imagination, wasn't it? __Everything was._

_ Suddenly, his hands no longer clenched moist leaves and roots as he pulled himself forwards, but blades of dried grass. Fox looked up, and found the end of the forest right in front of him. To his right and left, the dark forest stretched on as far as his eyes could see, until they disappeared into shadows. In front of him, rolling planes lead like ocean waves into a gloomy sunset. To Fox, the experience of leaving the forest for the wide open fields was like taking a breath of fresh air after staying inside, or escaping school after being cooped up for eight hours. __But now that Fox was there... what was he to do?_

_ Finding he had the strength to stand, Fox raised himself up onto his feet, though careful not to put too much weight on his left leg. Hobbling like a lame animal, Fox made his way to a large outcropping __of rocks __that overlooked the new scene in front of him. __He sat down on a comfortable one, growing beside which was a scraggly, leafless tree._

_ Looking around him in every direction, Fox took in the new world he had found. Before his eyes stretched a vast expanse of plains and hills, which ended at the horizon in a brilliant sunset. The sky looked like the closing of God's eye; the black heavens of night above, the dark fields below, and strips of colored sky in between where the sun had just slipped over the horizon. At the very edge of the world, a soft, red light glowed, slowly changing to orange, yellow, green, and then blue as it climbed skyward like a giant wave covering the earth. __Amidst the plains were piles of boulders and rocks ever so often, some of which were also suspended in the air several feet above the waving grass. The wind that howled forsaken and mournfully past Fox's ears manifested itself as clear liquid streams that slithered across the open expanse like snakes._

_ Overcome by the sheer size of the world, Fox began to sniff, which slowly turned into full out crying. He was a small speck in a vast ocean, a star in the sea of the universe, a stranger in a strange land. And for the first time in his life, Fox realized what it was like to be truly and utterly alone._

_ Shivering from lonesomeness, Fox drew his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, burying his face in his knees. His tears soaked through his pants and fur, chilling his legs.___If this is a dream, ___he thought, ___why won't I wake up?__

_ Fox fell onto his side, grabbing at the hard rock and curling into a fetal position as he cried himself to sleep. Sleep. The one thing left to do in a dream was sleep._

* * *

><p>"Get up."<p>

Fox stirred, slowly opening his eyes and half expecting to see the real world again, but instead, he was greeted by the same one he had fallen asleep in. He was still lying on the cold, rock ground. In front of his face waved a large shadow that swept at the rock below it.

"Get up, boy," repeated the deep, cold voice.

Fox stretched lazily and sat up, starring at the form in front of him. It was a tall shadow of a man, shrouded in a dark cloak. His face was completely obscured by his drooping hood. He leaned on a large walking stick whose tip was frayed like a rope, as if it was being swept away in the breeze along with everything else on the plain. The specter was dark and imposing, and Fox immediately noticed that he cast a shadow that completely covered him.

"Who are you?" Fox asked the figure.

"My name is Somniadux," he replied, "But you can call me Guide."

"Guide..." Fox repeated, his whisper blown away by the wind. "Do you know this place well? I'm a bit lost."

"Everyone needs a sense of direction," Guide replied, matter-of-a-factly. "By the looks of it, you came from Dimlight Forest. This right here, that stretches before you, is the Twilight Waste. And the whole world that contains all of these places is called Infranimus. But come, names mean nothing to a young boy like you. You need to see it. Can you walk?" Guide held out a hand to Fox, who immediately accepted it. The warm touch reassured him and gave him strength; he wasn't alone after all.

When he tried to stand on both feet, his left leg gave out and he fell back down again. Fox cried out in pain.

Concerned, Guide leaned over Fox, who still could not get a good look at his face. "Are you alright? Is your leg broken?"

"I think it might be..." Fox admitted. "But I can walk! Honest I can!" The last thing he needed was to be left behind by the only other person in Infranimus.

Guide spread his cloak out, the ends of which whipped around Fox and enveloped him, covering him from the light wind of the Twilight Waste. Fox scooted in closer, feeling safe and secure in the folds of Guide's cloak. Guide opened a bag that hung on the inside of his cloak, and pulled out several clinking vials and a pouch of crushed leaves. He rolled Fox's pant leg up, and proceeded to treat his wound. Even after a few minutes, Fox already felt his leg healing.

Once he was done, Guide tied a bandage around Fox's leg and stood up, giving him some space. Fox awkwardly rose, surprised when he found that he could put his full weight on his once broken leg. It didn't make sense; even he knew a bit about broken bones, and a few concoctions and herbs would not do the trick.

"How did you do that?' he asked in wonder.

"Do you have to understand how it works to be healed?" Guide asked back.

"Well, no."

"Do you have to know where the sun is to see its light?" Guide continued, pointing a robed paw at the sun that perpetually hid behind the horizon.

"No."

"Understanding is not necessary, Fox; believing is. If I told you the truth, you would not believe, because it does not make sense. In this world, all that is required is belief." Guide brought his head closer to Fox's, who stared back into his inky blackness, knowing Guide was trying to meet his eyes. "Do you believe me, Fox?"

"Sure. I believe you."

Straightening back up, Guide answered, "Then your leg is healed."

There was a long pause of silence as neither of them spoke, and the wind took its turn to howl some more. Fox looked left and right across the rolling plains. "So, where do we go?" he asked.

Somniadux chuckled. "'We?'" he asked, skeptically.

"Of course we." Fox grabbed Guide's free hand and stepped closer to him, taking refuge in his dark cloak. "I'm going with you. You are the Guide, after all."

"Then I will guide you, Fox." Somniadux gave Fox's hand a squeeze and stepped off of the pile of stones Fox used as a vantage point and bed. Together, they set out on a journey to explore the unending world of dreams.


	4. Twilight Waste

**Chapter 4: The Twilight Waste**

**Or,**

**Escaping Truth**

* * *

><p><em>"Northern Lights" - 30 Seconds to mars<em>

* * *

><p>"Hey, uh... where are we going?" Fox asked his guide.<p>

Somniadux turned his head around to gaze at Fox as he answered. "Good question, little one; Icelus City. It's not too far from here... though it doesn't have the best climate."

"Why are we going there?" he persisted.

"Just to visit a dear friend mine."

Fox narrowed his eyes, peering into the dark recesses of Guide's hood, but he could discern nothing. They were traveling together on the Twilight waste, along a dirt path overgrown with weeds. It was clear that the path was not often used. They crested a hill, and Fox looked around at the vast landscape before them. Even though they had been traveling for several hours, the time of day had not changed; the sun still hung just out of view below the horizon, casting a rainbow of colors onto the dark sky. Dried grass completely covered the ground as far as the eye could see, most of which was tall enough to come to Fox's chest.

"How did I get here?" Fox inquired.

"What is the last thing you remember?" Guide replied.

Fox stared down at his feet for a moment, trying to put together his memory, but anything that came to mind was just as dark and distorted as the landscape around them. Slowly, though, his thoughts began to coalesce. "I... I came home from school," Fox began, haltingly, "and I was told that my father had died. Then I ran away..."

Somniadux nodded, knowingly, his hood bobbing with his head. "And what then?"

"And then I fell into a creek... but... I can't see..." Fox trailed off, struggling to remember.

Guide turned around again, staring blankly at Fox. "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?"

Finally, the last piece of the puzzle fell into place in Fox's mind. His jaw dropped and he froze in his tracks. "I... I'm... _dead_?" His voice wavered on the final word.

Guide merely nodded, slowly.

Fox fell to his knees, clutching at the dirty road with his fingers. Thousands of thoughts swirled around in his head, realizations that he would never see the light of day again, that he would never be able to ask the questions he had left unasked, that his best friends would be gone forever. But above all, he could never live up to his father.

A dark shadow passed over him, and he looked up to see Somniadux kneeling down. "What troubles you, little one?"

"It's just that I'll never be able to do anything anymore. I've always tried to be like my dad, for my parents' sake, but I've failed." Fox sniffed, feeling more tears coming to his eyes. "But this can't be... I can't be dead."

Guide tilted his head, as if he were also raising an eyebrow behind the cowl of his hood.

"I'm not dead. How can I be? I'm here, aren't I?"

"Denial is not the way to face death, small one."

"But you told me the most important part is believing!" Fox accused Guide.

Somniadux sighed. "Be careful what you believe; there is nothing worse than blind faith. You have to face the reality of it."

"But this isn't real, is it? I'm in a dream. I'll wake up soon, won't I? And then everything will be fine."

"Little one, you aren't going to wake up. This is the _end_."

But Fox ignored him. "You'll see! I'll wake up sometime. That's what they make you think in a dream; that you can't wake up and that it's actually reality anyway."

"Then why can't you wake up now?"

Fox's new positive attitude did not falter. "Well... I just don't want to wake up!" He jumped to his feet and spread his arms out wide. "Look at this place. It's awesome! Who would want to wake up from this? No, I think I'll stay awhile. I don't want to wake up just yet."

Somniadux rubbed his face with a robed paw. "The stubbornness of children... alright, go on believing what you want to. Let's not talk about it anymore, shall we?"

Fox nodded enthusiastically. "Fine by me! But let's hurry and get to your friend." He cheerily bounded forwards, running down the path as fast as he could. He ducked to scramble underneath a boulder suspended in mid-air over the path.

"Hey! Hold up, little one!" Guide stumbled after him, his cloak sweeping the dried earth. He pushed the floating boulder out of the way with his staff as he hurried to keep up with Fox.

Fox noticed a pile or rocky shards piled up on the crest of a hill, noting that it would make a good vantage point. He left the path, diving into the tall, dried grass that rose above his head in some places. The grass brushed along his body and rubbed against his face like wind. He poked his head up every now and then to see if he was on track. Finally, he made it to the sharp crag and scrambled to the top. He lay down against the hard rock, crawling to the very edge of the crag, and gazed out over the Twilight Waste. Though he was met with the same scene as before, Fox could still not believe his eyes, and his breath was taken away. Guide crawled up beside him, and for once they were at the same height. They stared down at the never ending plains of dull, waving grass, colored by the vast sunset.

"Is it always like this here?" Fox asked.

"Infranimus is a world of many places, but there is one thing that stays the same for each one. The sun is always hidden."

"Why is that?"

"You ask too many questions."

Fox stared at the very brink of the horizon, hoping to catch a glimpse of the hiding sun, but he was disappointed. "But where does the sun go in the afternoon? Does it always just hide out of view?" He was struck be a strong sense of deja vu.

Somniadux shrugged. "No one knows. No one has ever seen it here. You may not be able to see the sun, but you know it has to be real because it lights up the world."

Suddenly, Fox caught sight of a few dark forms slowly moving about in the plains. "What are those?" he said, pointing them out to Guide.

"Monsters," whispered Guide. "You never know when you might run into them in Infranimus."

"Cool..." Fox breathed. "Are there lots of them?"

"They roam the more unpopulated areas."

"Can we get closer to them?" Fox asked. "I want to see them better."

"It's too dangerous, they might notice us and attack."

"_Please_?" Fox begged.

"Well... alright, fine, we'll sneak up on them. But you have to follow my lead and be very careful. Stay below the grass and – " he froze, mid sentence, as the sound of falling pebbles echoed around the crag. Somniadux flung himself up and spun around while Fox struggled to his feet. He was surprised to find two of the same type of monsters scaling up the side of the rock formation towards them. Fox froze in fear as he locked eyes with the closer of the two; its form was dark and shifting, but the traits he managed to make out were rough, pitch black fur, scraggly legs that grabbed and clawed at the rocky incline, and a pair of wickedly pointed horns at the top of its head. As the beasts opened their fanged mouths to snarl, Fox took a careless step backwards, slipping and nearly falling off the edge. Quickly sizing up the situation, Guide decided on a desperate course of action. He bent down to pick up Fox, then flung both of them over the edge together. Fox felt his stomach flip as the wind whistled past their falling bodies, and he struggled to keep a hold on Somniadux. Before hitting the ground, Guide twisted so that he was between Fox and the ground. Thankfully, both of their falls were cushioned by the thick blades of grass at the bottom. After they scrambled to their feet, Guide grabbed Fox's hand and pulled him into a taller section of the grass. Fox looked over his shoulder just in time to see the monsters halt at the edge of the crag, howling and bellowing clouds of steaming vapor.

"Wha... what are they doing?" he panted.

"Probably calling the rest of their pack," Guide answered.

Rushing out on the other side of the forest of grass, they found themselves confronted by three more dark beings, all slowly crawling towards them. Guide began to lead Fox back into the taller grass, but discovered the two monsters who had chased them off the cliff were waiting for them. Fox pulled himself into Guide's large cloak as he brandished his staff at the monsters. One decided to attack, lowering its head to point its horns at them and pawing at the ground. It charged at them, furiously bellowing smoke in every direction. At the last possible moment, Guide sidestepped, swinging his staff around to deliver a crushing blow to its head. The monster heaved and fell to the ground, struggling to move like a twitching insect. The blow had bashed its head in, spreading black liquid over the ground, but it slowly began to merge back together again.

"Don't let it reform!" Guide ordered. "Tear it apart! I'll watch the rest of them."

Fox uneasily left the safe confines of Guide's cloak to kneel down beside the monster. He reached out his hands and lay them on the monster's hide, gasping in surprise when they sank through into its belly. Deciding to follow Guide's commands, he began pulling the monster apart, which was a surprisingly easy task, as its body gave way like oil or dark molasses. He pulled away large blobs of inky flesh, throwing them as far apart as he could from each other, until they lay scattered about in every direction. The dark liquid gurgled and sank into the ground, and Fox was relieved to discover none of the monster's remains had stained his hands.

He rose up from the ground just in time to witness another one of Guide's attacks. When the second monster walked beneath a floating boulder, Guide pulled out a red vial of potion and swiftly lobbed it at the rock. The vial exploded, causing the rock to fall and crush the monster beneath its weight. The monster's body lost its form, dissolving into more dark liquid that seeped into the ground.

By now the three remaining monsters were thinking twice about attacking them. Instead, they circled around the two animals, pawing at the ground impatiently and snorting black vapors into the air. Guide reached inside his cloak again, this time pulling out a strange throwing-star like weapon that had a long, thin chain attached to it. He expertly flung it at one of the monsters, the pointed star burying into its side. He jerked his arm back, and pulled the monster towards them, snarling and struggling to get free. Fox then repeated the same process they had used before, tearing the monster apart until he had disappeared into the ground.

The two monsters that were left decided to turn tail and run; they realized it was a fight they could not win. Panting from exertion, Somniadux wound up his throwing star and chain, then bent down to give Fox a hand up. As Guide lead him back towards the main road, Fox couldn't help looking back over his shoulder at the retreating monsters. They clearly were not happy about losing their prey.

Once they were back on the road again, Fox asked Guide, "What were those things?"

Shrugging, Guide said, "They are monsters. Simple as that. There are hundreds of deviations of the foul creatures, so many that we've had more trouble than Adam naming them all."

"How did they get here?"

"Some idiot named Morpheus is responsible for them. I use to respect the man, until he went too far. Morpheus was a mage who specialized in magic, most of which was beneficial to this world. However, he became obsessed with the stuff, going to the length of even experimenting with black magic. He ended up creating all types of horrors that plagued Infranimus, and was banished by the rest of the inhabitants."

"B-banished?" Fox asked. "Where to? Somewhere far away... right?"

Guide shook his head. "Unfortunately, no. He is still free to roam around Infranimus. Where, none can say, but it was a mistake to let him go free in the first place."

"Why? Has he done anything else?"

"He causes mischief from time to time. There have only been a few events where he has done any serious harm. Still, it would warrant him an execution."

"Wait... an execution? Does that mean... people can still die here?"

"Yes, little one, the danger is very real. If you hadn't noticed, this isn't exactly Heaven."

Disappointed and a bit frightened, Fox let his head fall down so that his chin rested on his chest. Noticing his mood, Guide reached out a paw and took Fox's, giving him what little comfort he could. Grateful for the gesture, Fox accepted the hand and hurried up to step in time with Somniadux as they continued down the path.

* * *

><p>An hour later the wandering duo found their progress completely halted. Before them, an out of place river flowed straight across the path. As the river was extremely wide and dangerously rapid, swimming was out of the question.<p>

"Morpheus..." Guide whispered.

"You think he did it?" Fox asked.

"The river is definitely not natural; the path leads right down into it, so it must have been placed here recently. He's the only one I can think of who'd be responsible for this."

"Well... uh... what are we going to do?"

"We might be able to build a bridge with some of the rocks out here, but it would be very time consuming. I rather not waste our energy – " he suddenly broke off, shushing Fox and pushing back his hood so that a furry ear poked out. Fox took the opportunity to scan Guide's hidden face again, but he could make nothing more out.

Giving up, he followed Guide's lead and listened for any noise. Sure enough, the faint sound of deep voices could be heard, singing a distant chorus. As the sound got louder, Fox was surprised to see a workforce of moles crest the hill behind them, marching on the same path they were on. The moles were wearing silver hard hats, brown work vests, and yellow boots. They carried various assortments of tools, from pickaxes, to shovels, to hammers, to ladders and two-by-fours. Each one of the pudgy-faced mammals was either joining into the chorus, whistling along to the tune, or grumbling darkly to themselves about how much they hated it when the others sang. Soon enough, the workforce was upon them, and Guide pulled Fox aside into the grass to get out of their way. Some of the moles passing on their side smiled, waved, and winked at the two bystanders cheerily as they marched on their way. However, they showed no signs of being aware of the river in their path.

Fox tugged at the hem of Guide's cloak. "Do they even see the river? Are they going to stop? Shouldn't we warn them about it? "

"Actually, I'd kinda like to see how this plays out," Guide said, observing the moles intently as they marched blindly onwards.

"_Guuuuide_!" Fox pleaded.

Somniadux sighed. "Fine. Hey! Foreman! A word with you, if you don't mind."

A burly sized mole wearing a golden hard hat and green bandana waddled over to Guide, tipping his helmet. "Good day, sir. What seems to be the problem? Is there a complimentary dreamscaping service we may perform for you?"

Guide simply pointed at the river in their way. "Since when has that been there?"

The foreman followed his finger until his eyes reached the river. By now, several of the moles were already waist deep in the water, and still oblivious. The foreman's eyes bulged in their sockets, and he called out, "HEY! WHAT ARE YOU IJITS DOING!? DON'T YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE WALKING INTO!?"

There was only a slight disturbance at the front of the line; the moles in the bank of the river looked at their feet, blushing profusely under their stubble and wearing sheepish grins. All except one of the workmen turned around to walk back onto the shore. The remaining mole continued to march on, whistling unabatedly.

"Hey, Alistair!" the foreman shouted to get his attention, "ALISTAIR!"

"What's a matter with him?" Fox asked curiously.

The foreman brushed him off. "Nothin', kid, he's just completely deaf."

"And blind," a workman added in a deep, scratchy voice.

Fox watched helplessly as the oblivious mole continued to walk until he was completely submerged in the river, out of sight.

"Well knickers. Now we've gone and lost Alistair again." Shrugging, the foreman turned back to Guide and said, "Now, I suppose you'll be needing a bridge to cross that stream, eh? Eh?"

"A bridge would be nice, yes, thank you, Foreman."

"Alright then." Foreman, as Guide simply called him, clapped his padded hands together and shouted out to the others, "Let's get to work! _This bridge won't build itself_! Now, pull out all of the appropriate pieces!"

Before Fox's eyes, the mole workforce removed all of their tools from their belts and pockets, pulled nails and bolts out of their hats, and set down their stacks of wooden planks. They threw all of the materials into a large pile at the side of the road, then sat down together in a long line and unrolled the instructions, which ended up stretching from one end of the line to the other. The moles went through all manner of intense consideration as they attempted to decipher the instructions; they removed their hats to scratch their heads, stroked their chin stubble, and mumbled incoherently to themselves. Fox fell to his knees in despair; it was obvious the bridge was going to take hours to build.

However, behind the long line of moles, the pile of materials suddenly moved without provocation. First, the planks, screws, bolts, and tools all separated into different piles of their own. Next, the boards flew out across the river, aligning into the perfect shape of a stable bridge. Finally, the tools went to work screwing in the nails and bolts.

Still unaware of what had occurred, the foreman jumped to his feet and exclaimed, "I've got it! First, we have to – " But he stopped mid-sentence when he saw that the bridge was already built. "Oh. I guess the bridge actually did build itself." Turning to Guide and Fox, he bowed courteously and indicated the perfectly constructed viaduct. "_Vo__ilà_. Your bridge, sir."

Somniadux helped Fox to his feet. When he passed in front of chief bowing in mock politeness, he said, "Foreman, if your job was this easy every time, you soon would be as fat as the time Morpheus cast the bloating curse on the people of Jamadipe."

Frowning, Foreman indicated his fat stomach. "What do you mean, 'would be fat'? What's it look like we are now?"

Guide merely chuckled and bowed his head, taking Fox along with him across the bridge. Once they were on the other bank and well outside of earshot, Fox asked, "Are they always like that?"

"Like what?" Guide responded as if everything was perfectly normal.

Fox sighed. "Nothin'."

Guide ruffled up Fox's hair, teasingly.

* * *

><p>After another immeasurable amount of time, Fox and Guide stood before a giant wall of stone that stretched upwards, its tiers of sharp spires scrapping against the sky. At first, it appeared to be a solid wall, but upon closer examination, Fox realized it was composed of separate columns, spikes, and formations of stone.<p>

Guide rested a paw on Fox's shoulder, saying, "Stick close to me; it's easy to get lost in this maze of rocks."

"What is it?" asked Fox, shifting closer to Guide.

"It's a strange rock formation that separates the Twilight Waste from Icelus Valley. Can you feel it? The cool breeze coming from in between the spires?"

Fox closed his eyes in an attempt to heighten his awareness. Sure enough, a chilly wind emanated from the stone forest. When he felt Guide step forward and tug his hand, Fox stumbled after him. When they entered the stone forest, the last rays of the setting sun were closed off behind them, plunging the pair into relative darkness. Around them, the dusty shelves of rock breathed forth a faint mist from every, nook, cranny, and crevice. The deeper they wandered into the maze, the more frequently they were chilled by cold drafts blowing through the canyons.

Guide caught his breath and snapped his head to the right as a small pile of rubble cascaded down one of the spires. Exhaling, he looked forwards again and lead Fox onward. However, Fox couldn't help looking back where the noise had come from, suspiciously. His fears did not go unwarranted, as another event occurred. On their left, a dark form swept by, creating a whooshing sound in his wake. Fox and Guide turned just in time to see the last bit of shadow disappear behind a rock wall.

"What is it?" Fox whispered, but was immediately shushed by Somniadux. His guide picked up the pace and rushed Fox on, hurriedly choosing their path through the stone maze. Beside them, a large avalanche of rocks slid down into the canyon, narrowly missing them. Fox tripped on a loose rock and fell forwards, skinning his knees and crying out. Guide slowed down and turned around towards Fox. He bent down to help the small kit to his feet, but then froze in fear as he gazed down the canyon. Fox followed the direction in which he was looking until a dark shape materialized out of the gloom, leaping after them in erratic leaps and bounds. Fox quickly took Guide's hand up and brushed himself off.

"Little one, I think it would be much easier if I carried you," Guide said, stooping down and offering his back to Fox. Nodding, the young vulpine climbed up his shoulders and hung his arms around Guide's neck. Standing up, Guide began to run as fast as he could down the canyon, away from the unknown monster chasing them. Fox watched the dark landscape around him bounce up and down as Guide ran, causing him to clutch more tightly at his cloak. Out of nowhere, a soft, cold flake suddenly landed on Fox's nose. Looking around, he noticed that a light snow was beginning to fill the canyon and dust the toned rock shelves around them. It was then that Fox realized just how close they were to Icelus valley.

The monster behind them let out a feral growl as it renewed its chase towards the hapless pair, causing Fox to turn around and look at it. It lingered just out of sight in the shadows, but from what Fox could make out of it, it was similar to a large, black wolf. Frozen in fear and perhaps the chilling cold, all Fox could do was cling to Guide's shoulders and stare in terror at the approaching monster.

"W-w-why are you running?" he managed to ask, "Can't you kill it like you did the rest of Morpheus's monsters?"

Breathing heavily, Guide replied, "Morpheus didn't make that monster."

"Then who did?"

For a while, Guide remained quiet, obviously avoiding answering the question. Instead, he merely surged on ahead, intent on outrunning the monster through the maze of stone.

"What is it?" Fox asked.

"You ask too many questions, small one," Guide spat. Glancing over his shoulder, he realized Fox was staring at their pursuer. "Stop it!" he shouted, "Don't look at it!"

"But why? Fox asked, mesmerized by a morbid curiosity.

"I said, don't look at it!" Guide commanded again. He reached back and forced Fox's face into his shoulder so that the monster was out of view. Giving up, Fox turned his attention to the path ahead. The two cliff sides that now bordered them on either side stretched on to a thin, distant, bar of bright light that must have been the exit from the canyon. Behind them, however, the monster seemed to be gaining ground. Its frenzied pants and growls echoed throughout the maze, mirrored by the thudding footsteps that came closer and closer. Finally, Fox snuck a quick glance backwards again, observing how far apart they were from their predator. Breaking his gaze away with some difficulty, he compared the distance to what lay ahead of them, the end of the canyon. Fox did not like his conclusion; the monster was probably going to reach them before they could escape into Icelus Valley.

As the seconds raced by, the wolf's growling turned into out right bellows of anger, and it threw everything it had into closing the distance between it and its prey. Even though they were only a few yards away from the exit, the monster was now so close to Fox he could feel it breathing down his neck. While the white light from the end of the passage began to envelope them, Fox looked behind to find that the wolf was reaching out a grizzled, clawed hand in an attempt to grab him off of Guide's back. Once again, Fox froze in fear and watched helplessly as the claw drew closer and closer to him, its fingers spreading out wickedly like the legs of a spider, and the blinding light of the end of the crevice burst out all around him.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Cliff hanger again? Deal with it.**

**Who knows where this story could go from here; the initial outline has undergone several massive make-overs, probably one with each new chapter posted. At first, I was going to include as many personal dreams as I could, fitting them all together into one narrative, then I considered following the arc of one of my favorite albums, then I considered doing a disconnected series of metaphorical dreams, but finally settled on following the stages of... well, I can't divulge that, as it would spoil too much. There has already been one hidden reference as to the new plot line. Hopefully you'll notice some similarities between the dream world and the first few chapters, as well as some of the clever little easter eggs hidden so far. **

**So long for now, and I will hopefully be back soon. Last week has been pretty crazy for me, with a college road trip and mock trial competition, so that's why it has been about three weeks since my last post.**


	5. Icelus

**Chapter 5: Icelus**

**Or,**

**The City in Denial**

* * *

><p><em>"Debris" - Linkin Park<em>

* * *

><p>Walls closing in from either side, choking, constricting, squeezing the life out of him... A black, clawed hand reaching after him, fingers spreading wide, grabbing, yearning, inches away... A blinding, white light, coming from ahead, a light he had to run to; his life depended on it...<p>

Fox woke up, coming to a bolt upright position and screaming wildly. His scream echoed throughout the vast, empty valley he now sat in. His breathing slowly returned to normal, and his scream died off, once he realized he had nothing to fear. Looking around him now, he suddenly became embarrassed. Icelus Valley lay spread out before him, completely white; every inch was covered in snow. Geographically, the valley was a wide depression in the landscape, with steep hills surrounding it on every side. At the far end loomed a large mountain formation, its peaks disappearing into the gray clouds which covered the sky seamlessly. _Perhaps Guide was right, _Fox thought, _you can never see the sky in this place..._

Speaking of Guide, Somniadux's large, black form appeared on Fox's side, startling him. "Did you have a good rest, little one?"

Brushing off the snow that had accumulated on his sleeping form, Fox answered, "I... I think I had a nightmare." He shook his head to clear his memory. "What... what happened?"

"What do you mean?" Guide returned.

"We were being chased by that monster, running towards the end of the stone maze thing. It was trying to grab us, before we made it out of the crevice. But I don't remember how it turned out."

"Oh, if that's all." Guide laughed at Fox's confusion. "That's just the way it is sometimes; you don't always know how a dream ends." Leaning on his staff he thought for a moment. "It's like... like waking up before you hit the ground when you fall, or before you get hit by a car."

"So it happens a lot?"

"Precisely."

There was an awkward silence so quiet Fox could hear the light flurry of snowflakes coming to rest on the ground. When Fox didn't say anything for a while, Guide cleared his throat and said, "What, you want to be awake when you hit the ground? You want to be conscious when the monster gets a hold of you?"

Fox sighed. "No, I guess not."

He could sense Guide smiling knowingly under his hood. He reached out a hand to help Fox up. "Come on, little one, Icelus City is right before us. We're almost there."

Accepting the hand, Fox let himself be pulled to his feet. Sure enough, amid the white-washed landscape at the bottom of their hill, a medium sized city could be seen. Guide lead Fox down the slope in a short walk to the city.

As Fox struggled to balance on the slippery slope, he asked, "So, uh, who is this friend of yours?"

Guide stoically trudged on, black cloak brushing against the snowy incline. At first, Fox thought he was going to avoid question, but he was proven wrong when Guide finally answered, "A very dear friend of mine. Her name is Heramor, though some call her the Ice Queen."

"Wow! She's a queen? Back at Corneria, we only have chancellors."

"To me, at least, she's a queen," Guide said chuckling, "though her kingdom is only big enough to cover one humble antique shop."

"Aw," Fox sighed, disappointed.

Somniadux looked back over his shoulder at Fox. As they entered the city through a small street that seemed to half-heartedly spill out into the countryside from in between the buildings, he said, "What? I think it's a very fascinating antique shop, the only one of its kind."

"Why?" Fox asked, "What does she sell there?"

"Oh, forgotten memories... abandoned delusions... old dreams that we just can't put aside."

Fox simply didn't know how to deal with that statement, so, he decided to remain quiet and admire Icelus city. At first, the buildings struck him as something out of Charles Chickens' _A Christmas Carol, _mainly because they were closely packed, in rather poor shape, and seemed like something out of the nineteenth century. On closer scrutiny, the houses were revealed to be much more modern, the kind found in classy town centers, though admittedly stylized for nostalgia. Old fashioned iron-enclosed lamps lined the streets, none of which were lit at the moment. Large glass windows with gold trimmings provided easy display and viewing of shop's goods, from baked foods and desserts to classic toys. Fox enjoyed the walk, taking in all the sights and observing the cheerful, whistling citizens as they walked by carrying shopping bags or purses.

Eventually, Guide had Fox stop at the intersection of a busy street and gestured at one of the corner shops. It had a large, distorted crystal glass window that covered the shop all the way from one street, around the corner, and down the other side. A painted sign hung just above the door, displaying the shop's name; "Ice Queen's Antiques," and a picture of a swirling snow globe.

"Ah, well, here we are. Shall we enter?" Guide held the door open for Fox, who easily ducked underneath his arm and entered the store. Once he was inside and out of the snow, Fox instinctively shook himself, scattering the remaining flakes that clung to his clothes. However, his attention was immediately grabbed by the store's interior.

Antiques of various sizes and varieties were piled into or stacked upon every conceivable space; the most valuable filled the interiors of glass display cases, the eye-catchers were laid out upon tables set close o the windows, ornaments were hung from hooks stuck into the ceiling, and uncountable other objects were stacked upon rows of wooden shelves that lined the back walls. Fox's eyes ogled over the thousands of articles, each demanding his attention with sparkling lights, whirring motors, or jingling parts. Fox rushed over to the nearest table, which held a vast array of snow-globes, each one's contents perpetually swirling. At the center of the first one he saw was a large mountain completely shrouded in a blizzard of snow. The second pictured a green grove dotted with colorful pavilions and tents, swirling about which was a cloud of fireflies. The third held a dirty city covered in towers with cannons protruding from every conceivable place, all clouded by a blanket of thick smog. The fourth barely contained a raging storm of sand, stars, and ocean, all of which writhed and struggled against each other like snakes. Fox would have eagerly continued looking over the dazzling globes, but at that moment Somniadux moved over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Come now, little one, nothing will happen if you just keep staring at them. We have to find our hostess, Heramor."

Reluctantly, Fox tore his gaze away from the peculiar snow globes and followed Guide over to a door that lead into the back of the store.

"Hmm, I don't understand it. Normally she would be up and about, managing the store. This isn't like her..." The door lead into a dimly lit hallway with boxes of unsorted antiques lining either side. Guide cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, "Heramor! Are you back here? I've come to see you. Oh, and I brought a guest."

A weak voice responded through a doorway left ajar further down the hall. "In here, Somniadux." The voice was accompanied by a fit of disconcerting coughs.

"Oh no," Guide muttered as he hurried down the hallway. "This can't be good."

When Fox rushed into the room after him, Guide was already there, kneeling beside a bed. The bedroom had curtained windows on one side, allowing the dim blue light of the snow-covered street to filter through. Across from the bed was an open fire place, but all it contained was a pile of dying embers and the blackened remains of a log. Beside the bed was a desk covered in a few random odds and ends that meant nothing to Fox, but he knew they must have been important to their owner. Slowly and cautiously, he crept into the room and tiptoed over to the bed. Peeking over Guide's shoulder, Fox realized the occupant was a sickly, pale fox. The vixen's eyes were weakly opened as she smiled at Guide. She had bundled herself as warmly as she could in her covers, but part of her beautiful nightgown still poked through, revealing a sparkling array of miniscule tear drop beads, snow flakes, and ice crystals.

"Hello, Guide. I'm sorry you have to see me like this."

Somniadux tightly clutched her delicate paw in his. "Heramor, what... how... how did this happen? You're alright, I hope?"

"I wouldn't be in bed like this if I was, now, would I?"

"What happened to you?" Guide asked, his concern obvious from the worry tinging his voice.

"I've been... poisoned. I don't know if it's fatal, or if I'll recover, or if I'll be like this for the rest of my life."

An air of tenseness strung through the room and the fire crackled a bit, matching Guide's new temper. "Heramor, may I ask... do you know who did this too you?"

The Ice Queen, reduced to little more than a sickly woman, sighed. "Yes. It was Morpheus."

"Morpheus," Guide breathed, quietly. Fox could see the anger and hate Guide felt as he let go of Heramor's hand and clenched his fist. He stood up abruptly and spun around, his cloak swirling with him and scattering the light beams filtering through the window. He strode over to the fire place and kicked the dying embers, causing a burst of flame to sprout up and fill the room with an orange, wrathful glow. Cursing under his breath, Guide leaned his forehead against the fire place in defeat.

But once Fox was no longer hidden behind Guide's shadow, Heramor noticed him for the first time. "Oh? You didn't tell me you were bringing a friend." When Guide didn't answer, she raised her paw with some effort and gestured for Fox to come to her side.

Reluctantly, Fox stepped over to her bedside and immediately took her hand, instinctively, even. Heramor smiled when he held her icy hand in his warm one. "What's your name?"

"Fox, Fox McCloud," he answered, unabashedly staring at her dying face. The sight began to bring tears to his eyes. Before he knew it, he was crying silently.

Heramor drew Fox's head closer to hers and shushed him. "There there, Fox. I'm going to be alright. And if not, that's just the way it has to be. What matters most is how you take it." Heramor continued talking assuredly like that in Fox's ear, but Fox lost track of her words; they meant nothing to him. Instead, he was simply comforted by her soft, weak, crooning voice, one that he thought he remembered from years ago.

Once Heramor noticed Fox had stopped crying, she narrowed her eyes and asked, "You're not from around here, are you?"

Fox shook his head.

"Aw, you poor boy, Fox, you must feel all alone in this world, like a stranger in a strange land. Do me a favor, and stick close to Guide, will you?" She drew him in even closer, so that her cold mouth brushed his ear, and she lowered her voice to a whisper. "Without me, he's really just as lonely and lost as you are. Stick together, and you'll be fine." Suddenly, her voice took on a much darker tone. "Though I must warn you, there is a battle Somniadux faces with every waking moment of his life. It is a battle between two animals, one of good, and the other of evil. He does his best to hide it from everyone, but I'm afraid it's getting out of hand."

With wide eyes, Fox slowly lifted his head and looked over at Guide, who still had his back to them both as he silently stared down at the sizzling fire.

"The evil one is showing itself more and more. It's only a matter of time before he hurts someone with it... or himself."

Suddenly, Guide straightened up and spun around.

"I'm going after Morpheus," he declared.

"What for?" Heramor questioned, skeptical. "Revenge?"

"For justice. Banishing Morpheus was our first mistake. We never should have let the bastard live. I'm going to repay him for all the crimes he's committed, against me, against you, against all the peoples of Infranimus. But first, I'll make him lift whatever curse he's cast upon you."

"Guide, you can't be serious."

"Of course I'm serious! It's about time we did something like this. I can't just sit around here and let you die! I'm leaving and there is no point in arguing about it."

Sighing defeatedly, Heramor agreed. "Alright, but I have one favor to ask. You see... Morpheus took something of mine, after he poisoned me."

"What was it?" Guide asked, stepping over to her bed again.

"Just an old dream of mine, though certainly, the most important to me."

"What does it look like?"

Fox was surprised at Guide's question; he wasn't aware that dreams could look like anything, or be stolen, for that matter. But he was even more surprised when Heramor answered.

"A violet flower encased in a crystal. An old ornament, one that I've cherished for a long time and have never been willing to give up."

Taking her hand, Somniadux said, "I promise, when I catch Morpheus, I'll return this dream of yours, and I'll make him cure you."

"Well, go on now, there's no point in waiting with me." Looking at Fox, she said, "Goodbye, Fox. I've never met anyone as loving or caring as you."

Sniffing, Fox said, "Goodbye, Ms. Heramor." When Guide took a hold of his hand, he found himself instinctively struggling against it, trying to spend as long as he could with the Ice Queen before she disappeared behind the door frame. When they finally left the room, they walked down the dark and still hallway, and Fox was struck with a sense of calmness and completeness.

"Guide, will we ever see Ms. Heramor again?"

For a few seconds, they walked on in silence, and Fox knew Guide was struggling with the answer.

"No... little one."

* * *

><p>Stepping out onto the brightly lit snow-covered street again, Guide pulled his cloak more tightly around himself and turned to walk down the street on the shop's right.<p>

"Hey, Guide, uh, where do we go now? Are we going to find Morpheus?"

Guide shook his head. "First we have to assemble a small party. Right now I'm going to find my friend Oneir. We'll need his help; he's a very wise man. After that, we'll hire the Infranimus Dreamscaping Co."

"The Infranimus _what_?"

"You remember, the workmen we met a while ago, who were so kind to build the bridge for us? We'll need them to fix up the path ahead. If I know Morpheus, he'll be covering up his tracks pretty well."

They walked on in silence, merely enjoying the cheerful attitude of the passing townspeople and the homely houses and stores lining the streets.

Suddenly, a large shadow loomed over Fox, and it wasn't Guide's. Looking up, he noticed that the whole opposite side of the street had been enveloped by a massive glacier. The wall of ice stretched so far back that Fox couldn't see where it ended, and it stood so tall that the top vanished into the heavy clouds. The citizens of the unfortunate block had been seemingly taken unawares. People were frozen in the middle of reading the newspaper, walking down the sidewalk, or parking their cars. One unlucky gentlemen was caught in the middle of picking his nose on a park bench.

Fox ran ahead and caught onto Guide's sleeve, pointing a quivering finger at the wall of ice that was enveloping the city. "Wha... what is that?"

Guide didn't even glance sideways. "A glacier."

"But what's it doing _inside _the city? Don't the people know about it?"

"Of course they know about it. You can't miss a giant wall of ice that takes up nearly half of your home city. The problem is, they see it, but they ignore it."

"How can they ignore something as big as that is? Don't they know they're going to be frozen?"

"Everything around here points to their imminent doom, but they just deny it. The complete ignorance of some people sickens me."

"But they can't all ignore it! You see it, right? Why don't you warn them?"

"I gave up on them long ago. If they can't see what stares them in the face every day, they have no right to escape it. But there are those who still try to warn them. Obviously they don't get very far, or the city would have been evacuated by now. My good friend, Oneir, who we are going to see now, is one of them. But they treat him little better than a roadside soothsayer."

After some more walking, they escaped from the shadow of the glacier only to fall under another one. Towering above them stood a giant clock tower in the middle of the town center. A golden Victorian-styled clock face was set into the very top, each hour marked by Roman numerals. The base of the tower split apart, leaving a large atrium where people congregated. What immediately caught Fox's attention, however, was the massive pendulum that swung back and forth inside the atrium, just narrowly missing the tops of the citizens' heads with each swing. Fox openly gawked at the sight while he allowed Guide to lead him up the steps and into court. Gathered on the stone steps leading up to the atrium was a slowly accumulating group of spectators, who were laughing bemusedly at something at their center. Bobbing up and down above their heads was a large picket sign that Fox struggled to read. He could barely make out the words, "Time is running out: The end of the wordl [sic] is nigh!"

"Oh dear," Guide muttered. He took a hold of Fox's hand so as not to lose him when he shouldered his way through the crowd. They came out into the clearing in the center, and Fox saw that the sign was held by a ragged, bent animal with a gray cloak like Guide's. However, his face wasn't hidden. His head was adorned with long, droopy ears, and his face was covered in a frenzied expression that made him look like he was either spending too much time up in the hills, or was completely insane.

"Why can't you fools see it! Nearly half the city is missing now! Every day, that wall of ice gets closer and closer to the town center, and you go about your day, whistling your cares away!"

A man at the front of the crowd laughed at him. "Oh, so _we're _the fools, old man? No one cares about that little mound of ice. That ice cube belongs in a cold shot of gin, if anything."

"That's right!" a woman spoke up, "Come summer time, it'll melt right away!"

"A glacier that size would flood the entire city in six feet of water if it melted!" Oneir retorted, "And has anyone ever even heard of summer in a town like this? Winter and cold weather are staples here! They're the signature of Icelus! Face it, that wall of ice is inching closer and closer towards the heart of the city, as the clock tower slowly ticks down to your doom! Why can't you see – " but he halted mid-sentence when he noticed Guide and Fox enter the circle. "Sorry everyone! Proclaiming your imminent doom will have to wait. I have a friend I must speak with."

Guide stepped forwards, drawing Oneir aside from the crowd and beckoning for Fox to join them. "Do we have to speak in front of these prying vultures?" he whispered, harshly.

"We're in the middle of the town square," Oneir replied with a warm, jovial voice worn by age, "there's no avoiding a bit of eavesdropping. But first things first, Somniadux! We haven't spoken in months."

"Oneir, there's something I must tell you; we do not meet under the most ideal circumstances..." Guide proceeded to fill Oneir in on what had happened earlier that day.

"And you plan on hunting Morpheus down?"

Guide nodded. "That's why I came to you, Sage. If anyone could find Morpheus, it would be you."

Oneir thoughtfully scratched at the mangy stubble covering his chin. "Hmm... Morpheus will obviously try to obstruct our path. We will need the help of the IDS."

"Exactly what I was thinking," Guide agreed, "We will need to hire them before we leave Icelus."

"Right. Well then, let's not waste any more – " For the first time, Oneir caught sight of Fox, who was crouching behind Guide, trying to determine whether the old flea-bitten soothsayer was mad or just eccentric. "Oh? And who might this be? A little waif you picked up somewhere?"

"Ah... yes," Guide pushed Fox forwards, who was still a little reluctant to meet Oneir. "This is Fox; I found him crawling wounded along the Twilight Waste. It seems he doesn't know his way around Infranimus, and he has no ties anywhere. Quite a special child, this little one."

Bending down towards Fox, Oneir said, "What's a matter, Fox? Does my appearance put you off? I don't blame you. Anyone would be afraid of a flee-bitten bag like me. But don't worry, I don't bite. Got no teeth!" And he parted his lips in a wide smile to prove it. Then Oneir took to patting down the side of his gray cloak, looking for something. "Must have misplaced them somewhere... oh, that's no problem."

Guide hurriedly placed a restraining paw on Oneir's shoulder. "Please, don't scare the child out of his wits, old friend."

"Oh, right. Sorry, Fox, I didn't mean to – "

"No, that's okay, Oneir; I think I like you that way," Fox interrupted him with a cheerful, reassuring bounce in his voice.

"You... you do? Splendid! Well, then, you may call me Sage! Something only my closest friends call me. How about it Fox?" he said, holding out his paw.

Fox gladly accepted his gesture of friendship and shook his hand.

"Now, Guide, is this little runt coming with you?"

"Yes, but I think he has his own reasons for confronting Morpheus."

"What do you mean?" Sage asked, arching his eyebrows.

"Well... this little one is from..." Not knowing how to finish, Guide pointed upwards.

After a second, Oneir understood what he meant. "Ah, from the Overworld. So that means, if he's down here, he must have – "

Suddenly, a gun shot rang out from somewhere on the opposite side of the town center. Every ear in the crowd perked up, and heads turned around to face the direction of the shot. Further down the town center could be seen a group of fellow soothsayers running for their lives as several police officers and other fed-up citizens chased after them with blazing guns.

"Oh dear," muttered Sage, "I think we've irritated them enough for one day; our job here is done. The natives are starting to get restless." Then he hitched up the hem of his cloak and said, "Welp, I'm outta here. You boys better come along; they'll be after you, too."

"What do you mean?" Fox asked in a worried voice, "We haven't done anything!"

Proving Oneir's words to be true, an unidentifiable pedestrian in the crowd raised a hand gun above their heads and fired a warning shot.

"Hurry!" Oneir exclaimed, grabbing a hold of Fox and Guide. They tripped haphazardly down the town square's steps, then ran as fast as they could down a side alley. Fox nearly slipped on the brick street made wet from melted snow, but Guide was quick to lend a hand. As they rounded a corner, Fox looked behind them just in time to see a couple angry citizens enter their alleyway and brandish their guns.

As soon as they made it to the next intersection, Guide suddenly grabbed onto Fox and Oneir's sleeves. "Wait," he said in a breathless voice, "we have to split up here."

"Right," Sage agreed, "I'll go west and recruit the moles to our mission. You take this young man here and go east. We'll meet up at Harpman's bridge, got it?"

"Understood."

The group of fugitives ducked down opposite streets, running as fast as they could to escape their pursuers. At every new corner they came upon, Guide would peek down the street, making sure it was safe to enter. They were just passing The Ice Queen's Antique Shop again when a group of enraged townsfolk rounded the corner directly in front of them.

"They're they are!" One of them shouted, leveling his gun at the unlucky pair. Guide attempted to pull Fox into the antique shop, but it was too late; Fox saw a blinding white flash of light emit from the pursuer's gun, and his world faded away in an instant.


	6. Sulam Yaakov

**Chapter 6:**

**Sulam Yaakov**

**Or,**

**The Impassable Mountain**

* * *

><p><em>"Pretend to Be" - Linkin Park<em>

* * *

><p>Oblivion.<p>

The word was not in Fox's limited vocabulary, yet he had experienced it to a fuller extant than anyone else alive. His life so far had been a constant fading in and out between being awake and asleep. Not even that, it had been a gradual spectrum between the two. So far, he had been conscious of falling into Dimlight Forest, traveling the Twilight Waste with Guide, and finally running excursions in Icelus City. Still, he had fallen unconscious multiple times; he had fallen asleep on the edge of the forest, whited out before being grabbed by the strange monster in the stone maze, and, most recently, he had lost consciousness after being shot at by the angry citizens and police force of Icelus.

Now that Fox thought about it some more, the whole chain of events seemed rather disjointed, with multiple unexplained gaps. He considered asking Guide about the phenomena, but arrived at a conclusion himself. Fox settled on the theory that the episodes he experienced in Infranimus were just like any other dreams he would have in the real world; they came and went, and only kept up the barest of continuity between episodes. Yet he knew that in real life the dreams hadn't been endless, and he kept up the stubborn hope that after falling asleep or dying one more time, he would simply wake up.

By now the constant jumping between dreams barely registered with Fox. It had become common place, a part of his every day life. Most recently, he had gone unconscious in Icelus City. A citizen fed up with the constant proclamation of doomsday had leveled his gun at Fox and fired, but his world had gone white just as the bullet was closing in on him. And now he was at... he was in...

Where was he?

As he shifted his focus from thinking to his senses and perception, a cloud of black static cleared away from his surroundings. He was walking along a path through another woodland, which immediately brought to mind Dimlight Forest. However, there were several obvious differences that made this forest much less of a nightmare. For one, Fox had all of his wits completely about him; his senses were by now completely heightened so that he could see every detail, hear every bird call, smell every pine needle and flower, and feel the rough dirt path beneath his feet.

Secondly, the forest was brighter and more corporeal compared to Dimlight Forest. The colors, lights, and outlines were much more defined and visible, though there was still the same surreal feel to everything. The trunks of the evergreen trees wavered, as if Fox was looking at them through running water. The pine needles of the forest canopy rippled and shimmered in the light breeze, giving the appearance of turquoise diamonds. And the light seeping down through branches was so thick and golden that it reminded Fox of honey. I fact, the light was actually physical; Fox gasped as he stepped into a puddle of glowing fluid that had coalesced on the dirt path, getting his bare paws wet. The liquid light warmed his feet, and immediately slipped off of his fur again when he stepped out of the puddle. For a second, he wondered what light tasted like.

Finally, he was not helplessly alone. Walking two steps in front of him and leading the way was none other than Guide, feeling at home at the head of the party. Just to his left walked Sage, the eccentric and slightly batty soothsayer, wiseman, and friend to Somniadux. And all around, Fox was surrounded by the gruff crew of working moles which Guide had referred to as the IDS, or the Infranimus Dreamscaping Service. From what Fox could learn from Guide and from what he could put together on his own, the moles specialized in dream architecture and landscaping, using inexplicable processes to perform the impossible. The bridge building they had performed earlier for Fox and Guide had only been a sample of their skill (or good luck). Whatever they did, Fox knew it would come in handy for reaching Morpheus.

"So, little one..." Guide began, causing Fox to jump slightly in surprise. He hadn't noticed Somniadux falling back in the group to talk to him.

"Yeah? What is it?"

"I just think it's about time I asked _you_ a couple questions for a change."

"Questions? Like what?"

"Well, like why youwant to find Morpheus, for example."

Fox lowered his head and stared at the dirt path passing by beneath his feet. "I... I guess just for the same reasons you want to. I know he's a troublemaker for you guys, and that he's hurt so many people, especially Ms. Heramor. He just can't be allowed to keep doing that."

"Funny, how you would go to such lengths for a lady you've only just met. Not that I'm saying I'm not grateful for your help, of course. I appreciate your coming."

"But I feel like that wasn't the first time I've met her. I know I've seen her somewhere before... and spent a lot of time with her, too."

"Someone from the real world, you mean? The world of the dreamless?"

"I'm sure of it. But whenever I try to remember anyone or anything, it just won't come."

"Well, it makes sense. I guess you are prone to have some amnesia after dying – "

"I'm not dead!" Fox cried, cutting him off.

Guide sighed, shaking his head. "Whatever you say, little one."

They continued walking in silence. Somehow, even in the shade of the forest canopy, Guide was able to cast a dark shadow over Fox. Whenever his shadow passed over a puddle of nectar-like light lying on the path, it seemed to eat it up, draining the liquid away into the earth. Fox frowned. He hated the shadow that Guide cast over him. He hated being called "little one" all the time. And yet, it made him feel safe and secure. Guide was someone he could always cling to, someone who would always protect him. In fact, he thought he recognized Guide from somewhere else, just as he recognized Heramor. Oh yes, another thing he had to hate.

His lost memory.

Shaking off his feeling of deja vu, Fox stepped closer to Guide, taking a hold of his arm in both of his.

In response, Guide said, "I'm sorry for bringing that up again, little one. I forgot we promised not to talk about it. But you shouldn't worry yourself too much. Who knows if you're dead or just asleep. This could all be merely a dream. You could possibly wake up sometime. And even here, in the dream world of Infranimus, there are ways of coming back to life."

Fox's ears perked up and he looked into the dark recesses of Guide's hood, curiously. "Really? There's a way to live again?"

"In Infranimus, there's a place everyone calls Agartha. It's at the far west of the world, where the sun always hides. Supposedly, that's where everyone goes when they die. Some say, it's so far west that you can actually see the sun! What a sight that would be; I've sure longed for it my entire life. After we defeat Morpheus, taking you to Agartha would be our next step."

"Agartha..." Fox whispered, trailing off into thought.

Suddenly, a patch of bushes rustled immediately on Fox's right. He gasped, turning to look just in time to see a short, rather fat creature jump out and look up and down the path. The animal had dark green slimy skin that matched the color of the evergreens making up the forest, and two bulging, wild eyes that looked about frantically.

"Oh! Th-th-thank goodness! I'm s-saved!" he stuttered in relief. He promptly hopped over to Fox's side and grabbed a hold of his arm, burying his face in his side and clenching his eyes shut. Fox let go of Guide's arm to awkwardly pat the creature's back.

"Hey... uh... everything's alright, buddy – "

"Rem!"

"Huh? What?"

"My name's Rem!"

"Oh, well, mine's Fox, but what are you running from?"

Rem, quivering in fear, took one of his trembling hands off of Fox's arm and pointed into the underbrush. "I-i-it was right behind me! Chasing me everywhere I went! I thought I would never escape from it!"

Foreman, the leader of the moles, halted the party and sidled over to Fox and Rem. "What are you talking about? Escape from _what_, exactly?"

"That m-m-monster!" was all he could manage.

"He could mean one of Morpheus' foul creations..." Sage mused, stroking his tattered beard thoughtfully.

"Shh!" Guide hissed, "Here it comes!"

The group immediately assumed defensive stances; Guide readied a potion, the moles brandished their hammers, and Rem hid behind Fox, trembling. Sure enough, the hedges at the side of the path rustled, and the foremost branches parted to reveal...

… a dainty, white rabbit.

The small creature quivered in fear, red eyes wide at the intimidating party of travelers. Then, muttering "Oh dear..." in the squeakiest voice imaginable, it turned its cotton-ball tail and dove back into the bushes. The company stared at each other for a moment, only to burst into outrageous laughter. Fox couldn't help laughing himself, until he realized they were laughing at Rem.

Foreman stepped over to the frightened boy, bending down to his height so their faces were on the same level. "Aww! Are you scared of the little bunny-wunny!"

"Don't worry! We'll protect you!" Another mole exclaimed, taking out a miniscule screw-driver and brandishing it like he would a sword. "He won't get past this!"

"What's the little pipsqueak gonna do? Suffocate you in its soft fluff?"

"H-Hey!" Rem spoke up in self defense, "Don't make fun of me! I-I just thought... it just seemed like..."

"You call _that _a monster!" Foreman continued. "You sure are a coward! I've never seen someone that scared in my life! You would think the world was ending, just because of a little rabbit! Why _I'm _more scary then that!"

The rest of the moles continued the game, jeering and teasing Rem until he began to cry. He looked up at Fox, with big, bulging, tearful eyes, pleading for him to come to his aid. Fox almost spoke up in defense of the poor creature, but he himself feared the moles' criticizing words. Instead, he lowered his head and took a few steps away from Rem.

When no one came to help him, Rem collapsed onto his knees, drying his tears with his hands. The verbal abuse from the moles continued, until Guide was suddenly struck with realization. Turning to Sage, he grabbed his shoulders. "Oneir, do you know what that was? Tell me you know."

Oneir adopted a crazy, thoughtful expression, until it finally dawned upon him. "The white rabbit!" he whispered back.

Interested, Fox stood up on his tip-toes, trying to catch what the two elders were conversing about.

"It has to lead us to Morpheus. It has to!"

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's follow it! It's the best lead we've had yet. What luck, stumbling upon the white rabbit!"

Raising his voice, Guide spoke loud enough for the entire party to hear. "Listen up! Moles, Foreman; the plan has changed. We're going to leave the path and follow a better guide; after it! Find that white rabbit!"

"Aye aye, sir!" Foreman exclaimed as he organized his task-force to trek deeper into the forest. Guide lead the way into the bushes and undergrowth, stooping down every now and then to keep an eye on the small creature's tracks. Fox waited until the bumbling moles tramped into the bushes and were out of sight. Once they were gone, he stepped over to Rem's shaking form, and lay a paw on his shoulder. The pathetic boy suddenly went silent, expectantly peering up at Fox with tear-filled eyes.

"Hey, um... sorry for not standing up for you back there."

Rem dried his eyes with his hands, a deep red blush filling up his green cheeks. "D-don't worry about it. I know_ I_ wouldn't have dared... not with thoseguys around."

Helping Rem to his feet, Fox said, "I don't know about them. So far they seemed like pretty nice guys... but making fun of you definitely wasn't cool."

Rem looked back down at the ground in shame. Fox eyed the poor creature thoughtfully; he knew he had seen him somewhere before, but he couldn't quite place him. Looking at him now, he seemed all alone in the dense forest.

"Well, uh... do you have anything important to do? Places to go?" Fox asked Rem.

"Actually, no. I... I don't even remember what I was doing in this forest in the first place, or even why I was running when I found you guys. It's kinda strange, come to think of – "

"Great!" Fox exclaimed. "Why don't you join our group? We're hunting down an evil magician called Morpheus!"

"Well... I don't know..."

"Come on! It's not like you have anything better to do."

"But the moles..."

"Listen, if they make fun of you again, I promise I'll make 'em stop."

"And this Morpheus guy, he sounds kinda dangerous..."

"It'll help you prove you're not a coward!" Fox said in a sing-song voice.

Narrowing his eyes, Rem slapped his fist into his hand in determination. "You're right! I'll join you guys. I accept your invitation."

Fox patted him on the back. "That's the spirit, Rem! How's it feel to be with someone else instead of all alone for a change?"

"Well, it feels pretty good, I'll admit."

"Good, good."

"So..."

There was a long silence only broken by the rustling leaves and the liquid light pouring down into pools upon the forest floor. The two new friends glanced around the forest, awkwardly.

"Oh, right!" Fox exclaimed. "The rabbit!" And he took off, bounding deeper into the forest after the quickly disappearing company of moles. Looking back over his shoulder, he asked, "You coming?"

Rem nodded, and dove into the forest after him.

* * *

><p>"Hey, wait up!" Fox exclaimed.<p>

For several minutes, he and Rem had been in pursuit of their lost group. By now the trees seemed to be thinning out, and the chilling winter snow characteristic of Icelus Valley was more prevalent on the forest floor. When they finally came out of the trees, they were greeted with the familiar sight of rolling planes, covered in a pure white blanket of snow. They trudged over to the party of moles, scooping up powdery snowflakes with their feet as they went. Stopping next to Sage and Guide, Fox caught his breath and asked, "So, why'd we stop?"

Silently, Guide held out his arm and pointed to a set of tracks in the snow. Fox followed them with his eyes until he realized they lead up a massive mountain in front of them. The group was standing on the foothills, gazing up at the blinding white mountain with awe-filled expressions. It was so high that it's peek poked through the gray blanket of clouds, leaving it out of sight.

Fox's jaw dropped open. "We have to climb _that?_"

"If the white rabbit went up there, it must be the swiftest path to Morpheus," Sage answered.

"I... I am rather reluctant to climb up this mountain." Guide said. "Sulam Yaakov is a very unforgiving rock. Only few have dared to climb its slopes, and even fewer have reached its peek... if any." Guide turned to Fox, sullenly. "If we do choose to climb the mountain, we will be confronted with snowstorms, avalanches, harsh winds, and biting cold. Are you prepared for this, little one?"

Gulping, Fox stared at the imposing mountain before making his decision. He nodded halfheartedly. "Lets' go."

The climb up the slope started out easy enough. The incline was much less steep then Fox thought it would be, but the mountain made up for it with calf-deep snow. As the group trudged up the mountain side, Fox stared out at the wonderful view the roots of the mountain offered. While the landscape was truly monotonous, there still was something awe-inspiring about the bright white covering of snow that stretched out over Icelus valley, as far as the eye could see. The canvas-blank scenery was only broken by Icelus city, the glacier slowly overtaking it, and the evergreen forest they had just left. But all of that was behind them now, so Fox turned his attention up the slope. He was confronted with a much more imposing sight. The snow-covered side of the mountain seemed to stretch up miles above him, and Fox felt the gut-churning feeling one gets from staring straight up at the massive skyscrapers of Corneria City.

* * *

><p>It was not until sunset that they ran into their first obstacle.<p>

The thin layer of clouds rolling across the horizon was glowing fiery orange, hinting at the hidden sun behind it. The once colorless snow was now filled with a soft warm light, and the sky visible behind the clouds looked like cotton candy, swirling blue and pink.

Distracted while taking in the scenery, Fox accidentally bumped into Guide from behind. He rubbed his nose, stepping aside to see what was going down on the other side of Guide. The group had stopped at the side of a large chasm that disappeared into inky blackness that even the pink rays of the sun couldn't reach. Well, _most_ of the group had stopped.

"Alistair, watch it," Foreman said, aware that the mole was unaware of the impending danger in front of him. But Alistair continued to blindly walk forwards, wading his way through the snow and closer towards the edge. Fox thought he heard the poor soul whistling pleasantly.

Realizing that his voice would have no effect on Alistair, Foreman clumsily stumbled through the snow in a mad dash to save him, kicking up clouds of white flecks as he did. "Wait! Alistair!" he called.

But once again, he was too late. Alistair obliviously plunged over the edge, still whistling his favorite tune.

Foreman stopped himself right before falling over the edge himself, and teetered back and forth for a second. Once he had regained his balance, he muttered, "Well blast it. We've gone and lost Alistair again."

"Oh dear..." Rem gasped.

Fox leaned over and whispered in his new friend's ear; "Relax. I've already seen something like this happen once. I'm sure he'll make it out okay."

"Make it out okay!?" Rem exclaimed. "He fell down like a thousand foot cliff! How can you survive that?"

Fox shrugged. "I think he'll find a way."

"Well... it's not like this was unforeseen." Sage said. "That's what we brought you chaps along for."

"Foreman," Guide began, "We need you to build a way across this crevice. Do you think you can do it?"

"Of course, sir! This is in insult to our capability! Now, what exactly do you have in mind?"

"Eh?" Sage asked, leaning in closer to Foreman and cleaning out his ear. "What do we have in mind? Well, it doesn't really matter. Anything will do, whether its a bridge, or a path, or maybe some sorta wire – "

"Completely unoriginal!" one of the moles exclaimed in a nasally voice. "I was thinking more along the lines of a giant freaking catapult! We'll _launch _ourselves across!"

"Or a bloomin' cannon!" Another mole spoke up.

"Now now, boys, let's not overdo it," said Foreman, gesturing with his hands to calm them down. "Let's just do something more simple, like... a ski lift!"

Sage was not sure he was hearing the moles properly. He was speechless for a few seconds, completely taken aback. "I... I assure you, I'd be content if you just flung a rope across the chasm and had us climb to the other side. There's really no need for an entire – "

"Alright boys! We've got the green light! Ski lift it is!"

Exasperated, Sage sat down heavily in the snow and muttered quietly to himself. Seeing as they could be of no use to the moles, Guide, Fox, and Rem sat down with him, content to watch the construction. As before, the moles seemed to pull out all sorts of tools and building materials from out of nowhere. For a few minutes, the moles stockpiled all of their supplies and converged together upon them, their backs turned to Fox's group. Hammers swung, screwdrivers flew, and snow sprayed in every direction, making it so that Fox couldn't tell what was going on. Once they were finished, the moles admired their handiwork for a few seconds, scratching their chins and nodding agreeingly. Then, they stepped aside so Somniadux, Sage, Fox, and Rem could see. Fox looked skeptically at their creation; it seemed to be a giant mess of rolled-up steel cables, with pairs of columns and lift seats every so often, and an operating booth at one end.

Oneir smiled sarcastically. "Good work, as always, gentlemen. But now for the one hole in your genius little plan; how are you going to get it across to the other side? Hm?"

"Keep yer cloak on, screwy-eyes. Oye, George!"

The workman parted to make way for an extremely tall and buff mole, who Fox assumed was George. "Ugh?" he grunted, looking at Foreman questioningly.

Foreman simply made a full-bodied gesture like shaking out a rug or a sheet over a bed.

"Ugh," George stated in affirmation. Taking hold of the booth end of the rolled-up ski lift, he repeated Foreman's gesture, causing the ski lift to unravel and fly out across the chasm. Jerking his end down, the columns meant to hold up the cable stuck firmly into the ground on the opposite sides of the crevice, and before Fox could realize what had happened, a perfect ski lift was set up. The booth at the end and the pillars supporting the lifts were painted Christmas colors, with red and white stripes and green trimming. Fox gasped, Rem breathed "Whoa..." Sage's jaw dropped, and Guide rolled his eyes. At least, Fox assumed he rolled his eyes; he still had never seen Guide's face yet.

Leaning against the side of the booth, Foreman said, "Well? What do you think of it?"

"How did you do that?" Fox asked in disbelief.

"The IDS always pulls through," Guide admitted. "What say we start her up and cross the chasm, before it gets dark?"

One of the moles entered the booth and pulled a lever, causing the cable to slowly start turning and pulling the seats along with it. Once the lift was activated, the party climbed into their benches; Guide and Oneir took the first bench to pass, Fox and Rem took the second, and the rest of the moles piled in behind them. Once their bench left the snow-covered slope and hung precariously over the pitch-black chasm, Rem shut his eyes as tight as he could and grabbed onto the bench's arm, squeezing until his knuckles turned white.

Fox couldn't help but chuckle at him. "Really, Rem? You're scared of this?"

"_Et tu, Fox?_ D-don't start in on me like the moles did. Besides, I have a reason to be afraid; that drop is th-th-thousands of feet down!"

"Well, you could make it harder for them to bully you if you didn't give them anything to make fun of, right? Why don't you at least try being brave?"

"That's easy for you to say!"

"No, I mean it. Come on, open your eyes..."

Rem slowly opened his wide, bulging eyes, which danced around frantically from place to place.

"Now let go of the seat..."

His friend reluctantly stopped his death-grip off of the arm rest and placed his hands cautiously in his lap.

"See; that wasn't so bad!"

"Yeah, heh heh..." Rem tried to relax, breathing deeply and slowly letting his air out. "I guess it's fine." Working up some courage, he curiously leaned over the railing to take a quick peek down the crevice. "Oh boy..." he muttered in a quiet voice, and then slumped back down into his seat and resumed his death-grip on the armrest. "I... I think I'm going to faint."

"Hey, stay with me, buddy," Fox said, patting Rem's back. "Come on, you can pull through. Why don't you look somewhere else? Like... like the sky! Man, what an amazing sunset!"

"I don't know about that, child," Guide called over his shoulder from the seat in front of Fox. "Looks like storm clouds are coming in. We might have to go through an intense blizzard up ahead."

Looking up, Fox noticed the sharp contrast between the bright, cotton-candy patterned sky and the broiling dark gray storm clouds that were moving in from the east. Rem's eyes flickered closed for a second. "Intense blizzard," he repeated in a high-pitched voice.

"Hey, not helping!" Fox shouted at Guide. Turning back to Rem, he put an arm around his shoulder. "Listen, this is just more stuff you have to pull through! Stay with me, Rem! Prove you're brave!"

Rem slowly nodded. "You're right. I'll prove I'm brave. As long as I don't have to look down..."

"No, of course not. Even I get a little dizzy looking down."

"And we can make it through the blizzard, right?"

"Sure we can. You'll see." But as soon as Fox said it, the dark snow clouds completely overtook the horizon, cutting off the sun abruptly. Icelus valley was plunged into a foreboding gray shadow.

* * *

><p>Their next obstacle was the blizzard.<p>

Sure enough, just as Guide predicted, it rapidly overtook Mount Sulam Yaakov. A progression of snowfall took place, starting out with a light dusting, but getting heavier and heavier until Fox would have sworn someone was literally dumping buckets on their heads.

By the time the storm was at it's worst, Fox was feeling completely miserable. The harsh wind stung his face, the cold flakes constantly blinded his eyes, and the waist-deep snow chilled his legs and threatened to bury him every second. And yet, he persevered onward, resolving not to let the storm defeat him. To shield himself from the icy wind and snow as best he could, he defaulted to sticking close to Guide. It worked before, it would work again. The pair was at the head of the group, with Oneir and Rem struggling forwards close behind, and the rest of the moles following them.

"How do you know where we're going?" Fox called above the howling wind.

"Which ever way is hardest," Guide replied. "For one, the rabbit was headed up the mountain. We should always be heading uphill, towards the peak. Second, this storm is probably the work of Morpheus. The direction it's blowing from is the direction we have to travel. Do you understand, little one?"

"Uh, yeah. Sure."

Fox suddenly lost his footing on the slippery incline and fell forwards, landing face first in the snow. But Guide was there for him, immediately pulling him out of the snow bank and swatting the snow off of Fox's shivering frame. It became clear to him that Fox was having a difficult time climbing through frigid snow.

"Little one, perhaps it would be best if we turned back or found a place to stay for the night."

"No we can't do that! Morpheus would get even further ahead of us!"

Fox had not thought it possible, but the snow began to fall even heavier than before, with snowflakes now the size of snowballs. He had never seen snow this size before during his few winters on Corneria.

"I have a feeling the blizzard can only get worse from here. If we don't find a place soon, we'll get buried alive, frozen stiff, or blown down the side of the mountain!"

Guide halted in his tracks, but Fox refused to stop. "No! We can't stop now! We have to keep climbing or we won't catch Morpheus!"

Guide grabbed a hold of Fox's shoulders. "Listen, you stubborn child! There are sometimes when you have to face the facts and give up! The mountain is impossible to climb during a storm like this! Why can't you see that!"

Soon, the rest of the group caught up to Fox and Guide, and gathered around them to watch.

"Why are you giving up! As the leader of this group, it's your job to do whatever you can to catch him!"

"Then let _me _do my job the way I see fit! It's also my job to oversee the safety of the members of this party!"

"But... but... I don't care about them! We just have to keep going!"

Fed up, Guide leaned in closer to Fox and shouted at the top of his lungs, "IT'S TIME TO SHUT UP AND DO AS I SAY, YOU LITTLE BRAT! YOU'RE JUST AS BAD AS THE CITIZENS OF ICELUS!"

As soon as Guide let loose his barrage, a flash of lightning streaked through the sky, lighting up the mountain slope and the underside of the clouds. For a split second, Fox was able to make out Guide's face in the blinding light; it was definitely the shape of either a fox or a wolf, but he couldn't tell which. His eyes shined bright white from the flash, and his feral, canine teeth glinted in the light. Fox was completely shocked, and stumbled backwards in fear, mouth open in disbelief. The lightning was then followed by the crackle of overpowering thunder, and a strong tremor in the ground that refused to die away.

Sage rushed over to Guide's side and grabbed his arm. "It must have caused an avalanche!"

Guide turned away from Fox to address the rest of the party, black cloak flapping wildly in the wind. "Everyone! We have to group together if we're going to survive! Hurry! We have to stick together!"

Obeying his orders, the moles clumped together and grabbed onto each other, holding tightly. Fox nervously scooted over to Guide's side, still shaken by his momentary transformation, but he was reassured when he held him tightly against his side and whispered in his ear, "Forgive me, little one."

By then, the tremor shaking the earth had reached its climax, and a sea of white waves came crashing down upon them.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: So, what's my excuse for the long update gap this time? Final exams. Yup, I've had to do a lot of studying, cram work for teachers who didn't cover everything they should have, and paper writing for the nice teachers who decided to have us do projects instead of taking tests. The upside is that now I'll have the whole summer to freely write, and no distractions whatsoever! Well... for the most part. At least no more school. By the way, Nintendo announced _Star Fox Wii U_! Go check it out!**


	7. Summer Festival

**Chapter 7:**

**The Summer Festival**

**Or,**

**Belshazzar's Feast**

* * *

><p>"<em>No... <em>

_that's not true;_

_ I can't possibly be dead!"_

_ Fox wailed. "__Can__ I ever see anyone again?_

_ Will I see my friends, dad, or you?" He collapsed to the ground __in despair__._

_ But, as always, Vixy was there to comfort him. "It's alright, Fox. Don't think about death as the end._

_ Think of it as... the season of winter, before spring comes, and new life with it. Think of it as a deep sleep – __even__ a dream – _

_to pass the night away before an even brighter morning comes. In many ways, Fox, death is __just __the beginning." His mother's voice faded away _

_momentarily, __and Fox's surroundings once again changed. He now seemed to be floating in a warm darkness that lazily flowed around him like _

_t__hick liquid. __His ears reverberated with a __rhythmic thumping that permeated the whole __room, permeated Fox to his core._

_O__n one side of the __strange __enclosure, t__he wall glowed like a dim, red sun. __It seemed foreign to him, yet somehow,_

_familiar; he felt he had __spent eternities __in the safe room, __and __could_

_spend __eternities __more if he had to. __"__For n__ow is not the_

_time of __your __death, Fox,"__Vixy continued._

_"Now is the time of __y__our_

_birth."_

* * *

><p>Fox awoke once again, this time in a dark room. He was dressed in a pair of flannel pajamas and wrapped tightly in a bundle of blankets. The room was lit by a single, flickering candle, revealing wooden walls, a table, and a closed door, all with a weak orange light. Looking at the source of the light, Fox found that it was in the strong, shadowed hand of Guide. Bewildered and disoriented once again, Fox slipped off his bed with the bundle of sheets still wrapped around him and walked across the room. He sat down next to Guide on a bench that looked out the window. Somniadux was peering outside between a small slit in the closed curtains illuminated by a faint blue light.<p>

"What are you looking at?" Fox whispered, quietly.

"See for yourself," Guide answered. Cautiously, he drew the curtain aside far enough so that Fox could see.

Straightening up so he could get a good view over the window sill, Fox was greeted with the sight of a quaint little village covered in a sparkling white blanket just like his own. A cobblestone street stretched around behind a corner, bordered on either side by cottages and shops reminiscent of a medieval styled village; the buildings were made with thatched hay awnings, stone bricks with wooden trimming, and iron chimney stacks that poked out from snow-covered roofs.

"Where are we again? I thought there was an avalanche or something."

"Well, there was. Luckily, the moles were able to dig us out with shovels they magically pulled out of their trousers. From there, we carried you to a village on the mountainside, and we're presently holed up in this inn. You can probably tell by now that the blizzard is over."

Looking outside again, Fox noticed that not a single snowflake dared to float down from the sky anymore. The blizzard had indeed blown its course. Suddenly, Fox saw movement in the yard in front of the inn. Narrowing his eyes, he noticed a small pack of silvery thin creatures slowly walking into the dim blue light provided by ghostly streetlamps. The creatures were covered in sparkling gray and white pelts, curved antlers, horns, and even wings folded across their backs. They gracefully stepped out onto the lawn to graze, bending down their necks to dig through the snow to the grass below.

"What are those?" Fox gasped.

"No idea." Suddenly, Guide tensed up. A carriage came barreling around a corner pulled by a frantic black horse and an equally worried driver flailing a whip. The carriage caused snow to go flying on either side as it flew down the street, until it disappeared behind a bend and out of the light from the street lamps.

"What's it running from?"

"Hush, little one!" Guide whispered, urgently.

They waited for a few seconds of complete stillness, until a massive black shadow shot out into the street and raced after the carriage, its clawed paws tearing up the snow in its wake. In the brief seconds it was visible, Fox realized it was a dark wolf.

When it disappeared around the corner, Fox asked, "Isn't that the same monster that was chasing us earlier?"

"Look... child... just forget what you saw tonight and get some rest. We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow." And before Fox could steal another glimpse out the window, Guide drew the curtains closed.

* * *

><p>"Little one! It's time to get up!"<p>

"Mmm... five more minutes, dad," Fox mumbled, and he rolled over in his bed to keep the light from shinning on his eyes.

"I'm not your dad, I'm..." Somniadux paused for a moment, inexplicably bewildered. Shrugging, he chuckled and finished his sentence. "...Guide. Ahem! Better get up now! If you sleep in, Morpheus and his monsters will get you!"

"M... Morpheus!" Fox sat up and rubbed his eyes, genuine fear starting to grip him.

"Ha haaa!" Guide laughed triumphantly as he grabbed Fox's hand and jerked him out of bed, "I knew that'd get you up right away!"

The next five minutes were a blur to Fox. He was pretty sure he was able to wash, get dressed, and shove an egg or two into his mouth before stumbling half-awake out the door. He was still slipping his arm through the sleeve of a new shirt Guide had found for him. Close behind, Rem stumbled out of the front door of the inn, with a far away, dreamy look on his face. He leaned against a railing for support, only to slowly slide down until he was lying face up on the front porch, once again snoring blissfully. He was given no time to rest, however, before Sage stepped out of the door and lifted him to his feet, slapping him awake.

"Come on, now! No time for that, young lad! We've got places to go! We might be late! Kids these days..."

Guide came out next, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Still rubbing his eyes, Fox whined, "Guide, why did we have to get up so early?"

"So we could get out before the innkeeper wakes up and discovers we can't pay our bill. It seems that there isn't a cent between the two of us old fools!'

"Come along now, kids, run along! Follow Guide!"

What remained of their party set off hurriedly down the vintage street, with Fox and Rem unquestioningly following Guide. Once their leader judged that they had put ample distance between their group and the inn, he allowed the two children to slow their pace and catch their breath.

"Heh, we sure pulled a fast one over that innkeeper, didn't we!" Oneir exclaimed between breaths as he slapped Guide's shoulder.

Curious, Fox tugged on Guide's cloak. "Hey, where are we going now? Do you know where the white rabbit went?"

"I have an idea," Guide answered. "The little fellow usually drops in to haunt the summer festival. The villagers prepare one every year around this time. So, we can enjoy the festivities while at the same time searching for the rabbit."

"You're just making this up, aren't you?" Fox asked slowly.

"Yes. But whatever I make up will happen. Infranimus works like that, you know. Perhaps you'll learn how to pull off this same feat sometime. The best part is that you don't even have to know what you want; your consciousness will shape the dream world for you. Right now, there's a little lesson I want ingrained in your head, and everything so far hasn't worked. The summer festival will be my last attempt, and then we'll move on."

Fox stopped dead in his tracks, a bewildered look covering his face as he tried to make sense of what Guide just said. When he was scared he'd fallen too far behind, he quickened his pace and stumbled towards the group again. "So... you can control the dreams?" he asked, haltingly. "Can you do it too, Sage?"

Oneir grinned. "Some people say Somniadux is madder than me! Half the time I don't know what he's babbling on about. I just ignore his ramblings, and he ignores mine."

"Uh, excuse me, but, what is the summer festival?" Rem asked meekly.

Fox was annoyed that his friend had changed the subject. To him, it seemed like everyone was conspiring with Guide to keep him in the dark.

"Just what it sounds like, little one," Guide answered. "The festival celebrates the end of winter and spring, and the coming of summer. It's a festival about being alive, a festival for living things with a love of growth, a festival which celebrates a collective immortality and positiveness even in the face of death. Ignorance is bliss, I guess. Check that; stubbornness is bliss."

As they walked the remainder of the distance to the edge of the city, Fox silently put it together. He knew what Guide was trying to teach him. But Fox didn't like being taught.

After a few minutes, they exited the village through a well-traveled dirt path into a forest, which itself emptied out into a large hollow on the mountain side. Fox was amazed when they first emerged into the clearing, overwhelmed by the breathtaking scene before him. The clearing was bordered on all sides by a dense forest covered with green, new life. The sky above was a range of blues, covering the spectrum from a pale whitish hue at the edge of the horizon, to a dark, deep blue spotted with stars at the top of the sky. All around, puffy white clouds streamed around the atmosphere, blocking out the sun which, as always, remained out of sight. The festival itself was a dizzying whirl of colors; tart reds, electric blues, and bright yellows were painted on tents, tarps, awnings, and kiosks. A large Ferris wheel turned lazily at the far side of the carnival, while booths distributing candies, foods, and drinks lay in between.

Suddenly, Fox noticed a group of moles clumsily attempting to set up a cotton-candy booth a few yards away from them. They carelessly stumbled over each other, accidentally hammering each others fingers, bashing each others heads with boards, and suffocating each other in the awning tarp. Fox didn't know how they did it, but the booth was finally put together without a scratch, while the moles ended up in a confused heap on the green turf.

Fox tugged on Guide's cloak again. "Why are the moles here?"

"The IDS? Well, they had to sleep and eat someplace last night, too. I guess they agreed to help with the set up of the festival. And I must say they are doing a _splendid_ job."

As soon as he finished, Fox looked just in time to see one mole absently drop a paint can on the head of another. The victim worker just stood there, fists clenched as bright, banana-yellow paint dripped down his overalls. His expression said he was not pleased. "I... guess they are," Fox mumbled.

"Well come on! What are we waiting for?" Rem said as he grabbed Fox's hand. "Let's go!"

"Yeah, but what do we do first?"

"Lets get some cotton candy!"

"Dessert first?" Oneir asked as he tsk-tsked them. "That'll spoil the rest of you meals."

"That's the point!" Rem exclaimed, pulling Fox towards the newly-erected booth. "At a festival we don't have to have a real meal first! We'll start with dessert, and then have lunch!"

"Well, sounds like a good idea..." Fox mumbled to himself as Rem pulled him along.

* * *

><p>The party wandered from booth to booth, stopping to try all sorts of sweets, games, and rides, waving hello whenever they ran into a mole they knew. By the time they were getting full of candy, Fox had forgotten all about Guide's little lesson plan and their current mission of tracking down the white rabbit and Morpheus. Though Rem claimed it was impossible to get full on candy, even he broke down and admitted he needed some lunch.<p>

Fox trusted his nose to find the nearest food booth, which turned out to be a hot dog stand. The jovial pig selling the food leaned across the counter and asked, "Well young masters, what can I get for you?"

Fox and Rem both ordered hot dogs with their choice toppings, then found a picnic table to eat at, located on the edge of the carnival grounds. Guide and Sage sat down next to them soon afterward, with lunches of their own. The four chowed down on their meals while watching a country band perform on a small stage not too far away. Fox, Rem, and Sage enjoyed the music, but Guide was clearly annoyed, as he kept trying to strike up a conversation to drown it out.

"What say we discuss ways to take care of Morpheus, eh?"

He got no response except for a quick glare from Sage.

"Er... fine weather today, especially considering we had a blizzard just last night – "

"It's a dream world," Sage snapped, "Get used to it."

Undisturbed, Guide continued. "Uh... hear any good rock songs lately?"

Annoyed past his limit, Sage slammed his hands forcefully down on the table, grabbed his plate of food, swung off of the seat, and joined the crowd in front of the stage.

"Well that escalated quickly," Guide muttered.

Fox's eyes wandered to the edge of the green forest that bordered the festival grounds. He narrowed is eyes; there seemed to be a black mist spreading through the bushes. "Isn't it a bit dark over there? That can't be normal."

"It's probably just Morpheus trying to crash the party. He can't stand it when people have fun without him."

"Morpheus is here!" Fox exclaimed. "Then come on! Let's go get him!"

"Oh, did I say Morpheus?" Guide mused absently. "I meant his twelve-foot-long carnivorous mutants."

"What?" Fox peered once again into the growing shadows and yelped when he noticed several pairs of glowing eyes stalk through the undergrowth, just out of reach of the bright mid-day light.

"Did I mention they breath fire?" Guide asked, absently.

"F-f-f-fire?!" Rem exclaimed, seeing the monsters for the first time as well.

"Probably spit toxin, too, I shouldn't wonder."

"We have to stop them!" Fox exclaimed. "Guide, where're your potions?"

"Oh, these?" Guide slipped out a pair of red vials and began playing with them on the table. "Won't need them. It's too late now."

"How can you be so calm about this!?" Fox yelled. "There are _monsters _out there that can kill us! We have to warn the people! Call off the festival!"

"You can try, little one, but they won't pay you much attention. These people are just as blind as the people of Icelus City."

"But they have to see the monsters! Right? They aren't completely bli – " But Fox halted, mid-sentence. He finally figured it out; _he_ was supposedly ignorant, uncaring, and stubbornly obstinate, and Guide was going to teach him a lesson. Crossing his arms, harrumphing, and putting on a defiant frown, Fox turned his head away from the monsters and stared down at his food. He wouldn't let Guide teach him anything.

"What's the matter, little one?" Guide whispered, caringly. "I thought you saw monsters out there?"

"What monsters?" Fox asked, pretending to be oblivious. "We'll be fine."

"You can't ignore them forever."

"There's nothing to ignore."

One of the monsters let loose a chilling howl.

"Alright, maybe there are monsters, but they're stuck in the forest."

"Even now the shadow is spreading."

Fox chanced a quick peek away from the table, surprised to discover the black cloud was dripping out of the forest and across the field in between. The sky even seemed to be darker now.

"I-it's fine," he told himself again. "I can keep ignoring it. It's my dream anyways."

Sighing, Guide said, "Perhaps this will make you realize."

"This? What?"

Fox watched in horror as a young girl on the edge of the crowd dropped a baseball she had probably one as a prize. The ball rolled across the field and into the dark shadows.

"Aww," the girl lamented in a cute voice as she skipped off after the ball.

Fox opened his mouth to warn her, but it was too late. Faster than the eye could see, a wolf-like creature sprang out of the bushes and latched onto the girl's ankle with its teeth. The girl screamed and cried helplessly as she dug her fingers into the ground to keep from being dragged away, but no one in the crowd paid her any mind. Instead, they were content to sway and dance as they listened to the band play away.

"The monsters don't exist, the monster's don't exist, the monsters don't exist... oh, why do they exist!" Fox yelled. "Whatever. I can't just ignore them, not when that girl needs help!"

"That's more like it, child! I knew you'd come around eventually!"

Hopping up onto the table, Fox grabbed both of the vials Guide was fiddling with.

"Hey! What are you doing? Don't go out there, you might get killed!"

"I'll never understand adults..." Fox mumbled as jumped off the table and raced across the field. When he got close enough to the hunter and its struggling prey, he drew his arm back and yelled, "Hey stinker, watch this!" He threw the vial of red liquid as hard as he could, making sure to throw it far enough behind the predator so as not to harm the girl. The glass bottle shattered on the ground behind the monster, immediately exploding with firework-like effects. The large, scraggly creature was blown apart as well, scattering bits of sizzling black sludge in all directions. When Fox reached the small girl's side she was lying on the ground, cowering in fear. She was covered in streaks and splotches of the monster's remains, which did not go unnoticed to her as she stared with eyes as large as saucers at her blackened hands.

"Come on! We gotta run!" Fox said as he grabbed her paws and tried to lift her from the ground. His hands slipped off of hers the first time he tried, but he wiped off the dark liquid on his shirt and tried again, this time with more success. They stumbled away like a drunken couple, Fox trying to support the girl as best as he could, periodically glancing over his shoulder at the monsters in the woods. As the wolves ventured out after them, the girl finally seemed to come to her senses, and Fox no longer had to drag her along like a rag-doll. When the monsters had almost closed in on them, Fox turned around long enough to toss the remaining potion into the pack, which managed to discourage them from following any further.

Upon reaching the safe confines of the carnival once again, Fox let go of the girl and fell on his hands and knees, catching his breath. The girl lay on her side, attempting to wipe the dark liquid off with her paws. When she had cleaned off all she could, her dress and orange and white pelt were still stained with black. Watching the girl out of the corner of his eye, Fox realized how horrified she must be. He couldn't help remembering what he had done when he ran into the monsters the first time. He had ripped Morpheus' creations apart, ignoring the revolting sound, touch, and scent of tearing into them. The girl, he realized, wasn't taking it as well as he had. She needed to get her mind off of it.

Standing, he stepped over to the girl and extended his hand. "Hey, I'm Fox."

She met him with wide eyes, first looking at his open paw, then at his face. She said nothing.

Fox smiled. "You uh... got a name?"

Staring at the ground now, she gathered enough courage to ask, "You... killed them, didn't you?"

"Course."

"But they could have killed you."

"Well, if I didn't, they woulda gotten you, right?"

The young girl glanced up at his eyes again, then looked away as she took his hand and stood up. Fox turned around, still holding her hand, and began to walk back over to the picnic tables.

"Come on, we gotta go find Guide. He'll tell us how to save the festival and take care of the – "

The girl suddenly stopped walking, and Fox was forced to as well. Interrupting him, she said, "Um... it's Lucid."

"Huh?" Fox asked, confused.

"You wanted to know my name... it's Lucid."

Fox cocked his head and smiled at her. "You people have the weirdest names."

He started to walk away again, but Lucid stopped him.

"And one more thing... thanks."

* * *

><p>Rushing back over to the picnic tables, Fox found that Somniadux was finishing up his lunch, Sage had returned from the concert, and Rem was cowering behind the table as the darkness continued to seep closer into the fair grounds. Noticing Fox, he stood up and sighed, relieved. "Oh, gee Fox, you made it back!" Then, noticing his new companion for the first time, he added, "Hey, is that the girl you saved?"<p>

"Yeah, she's Lucid," Fox answered. "But I have to talk to Guide." Rushing over to his side, he tugged on his cloak again and asked, "Guide what are we gonna do? We have to stop the monsters! Can't you use your potions?"

Guide shook his head. "I only have so many, little one. I'm afraid I don't have enough to stop all of the monsters; there's just too many of them. We only have enough to ensure our own safety."

"Then let's use what we have to get out of here!"

With mock surprise, Guide said, "What? You mean to tell me you don't care about the villagers?"

"Well..." Fox stared at the crowd still gathered around the stage, dancing to the upbeat guitars and banjo without a care in the world. Clenching his fist, Fox glared at the crowd of oblivious villagers. They had stood by when Lucid was attacked by the monsters, and paid little attention to the dark mist flowing into the carnival, or the wolves prowling in the shadows.

"Not one bit!" Fox exclaimed angrily. "What did they care about us? They're just blind, no, pretending to be blind so they can keep on singing and dancing! Why can't they see what's going on when it's so dangerous? Their lives and other people's lives depend on this! I can't forgive them for that! They can be eaten by the monsters for all I care! Serves them right! I would say the same to you, because you are able to control all this somehow, but we need you to get us out of here."

"So what you're saying is," Guide said as if he were laying the last pieces of a trap into place, "Simply ignoring things doesn't make them become any less real?"

"Yeah-yeah-yeah, whatever you wanna say. But come on! Let's get out of here! Guide!"

"I'm sorry, little one, for now your next lesson begins."

"What... what are you talking about?"

But before Guide could answer, a shadow fell across them. The sky was now completely covered in clouds, and the dark mist had permeated the entire festival.

"This is bad... this is bad!" Rem exclaimed.

A series of howls and cries emanated from the woods, and the beasts erupted from the trees like a flood from a dam, quickly covering the ground between the forest and the fair grounds in a few seconds. Lusting for destruction, they smashed into the wooden booths, ripped into canvas tents, and snapped their jaws at anyone within range. It was only now that the villagers began screaming and running for their lives.

"Wellp, we better be off, right?" Oneir said as he stood up, bent over backwards painfully to stretch his back, and walked off in the direction of the village. Fox, Rem, and Lucid were quick to follow, with Guide bringing up the rear. As they escaped through the destruction of the festival, they ran into the ravenous wolves several times, but Guide and Sage were sure to beat them back. It wasn't long before Fox became completely lost and mixed up, entirely relying on the elders to see them to safety.

"Look out!" Lucid cried. Fox quickly identified the source of her alarm, but it was too late; there was nothing he could do. From their right, the monsters caused a red and white painted tent to come crashing down on them. Fox was lost in a confusing swirl of colors, writhing and struggling to free himself from the mess of canvas as the wolves continued to howl around him.

_I have to get out of here! _he told himself as he tore away at the cloth and canvas that surrounded him on every side, _Before they, before they – _

He was too slow. Suddenly, the sharp, black claws of one of the monsters ripped through the tarp, and a snarling head poked through. Fox screamed in terror as the wolf viciously snapped its dripping jaws at him, each bite getting closer and closer.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: By now I should have gotten you all to the point where a cliff hangar means nothing anymore, kind of like every time Tom Cruise dies in _Edge of Tomorrow. _It's to be expected.**


	8. Cannon Fodder

**Chapter 8: Cannon Fodder**

**Or,**

**Feeding the Machine**

* * *

><p><em>"Torn Apart" - Enter Shikari<em>

* * *

><p>Slowly the sound of cheering came to Fox's ears.<p>

Opening his eyes, he realized he was in the midst of a roaring crowd, all of whom were clapping their hands in thunderous applause, triumphantly throwing their fists in the air, or hollering and cheering at the top of their lungs. The crowd of people all towered several feet above Fox's small stature, leaving him covered in their shadows, unable to make out their faces. They all were facing the same direction, towards a bright white light that sliced through the suffocating smog like daggers, but Fox was too short to see over anyone's shoulders and identify its source.

Fox was about to attempt scaling up the back of one of the people to get a better look when he felt a familiar, slimy hand grab his. Rem was standing next to him, tugging him in the opposite direction.

"Come on, let's get to a higher place!"

Giving into his friend, Fox followed Rem as he wove through the legs of the crowd until they came to a pile of crates. Once they had climbed on top, they turned back around to follow the gaze of the crowd, and were forced to shield their eyes from an array of blinding sun beams. From their new vantage point, Fox realized they were standing in a city square surrounded by tightly packed, grimy buildings. A large wall towards which the crowd was facing blocked out the majority of the sun and the sky; it was even larger than some of the buildings on Corneria. The source of the light was streaming through a pair of open gates set in the wall, causing the ethereal smog that covered the city street and sky to light up with a warm, yet cool, glow.

Squinting his eyes, Fox looked at the figures standing in the gate. Two black shapes stood outlined against the blinding sunbeams, black silhouettes framed against a white background. Even from Fox's distance, he could identify the hood and staff of Guide, as well as the pointed ears and tattered cloak of Sage. The presence of the two familiar figures only served to confuse Fox more.

"Rem, I don't get it..." Fox struggled to be heard over the deafening throng. "What's everyone cheering for?"

"Can't you tell?" Rem answered, annoyed, "Guide and Sage are being sent out to hunt down Morpheus, once and for all! The people are seeing them off!"

"Wait, that can't be right..." Fox said to himself.

"What?" Rem shouted back over the roaring din.

"I thought _we _were the ones who were going to defeat Morpheus! All four of us, together! And that girl we picked up at the... at the... oh, what was it..."

"Don't worry, we have our own job to do right here," Lucid answered, suddenly appearing at Fox's side.

"But, what can we possibly do in a dump like – "

"Shh!" Lucid shushed him, and pointed back towards Somniadux and Oneir.

Returning his gaze, Fox watched as the duo lifted their staffs in triumph, cloaks spreading wide across the golden mist, and the crowd broke out in cheers once again.

"HIP-HIP... HOORAY!" The citizens shouted wildly in response to their gesture.

"HIP-HIP... HOORAY!" Guide and Oneir turned their backs on the crowd and began to walk out of the city, the massive gates slowly closing behind them.

"HIP-HIP... HOORAY!" The gates slammed shut with an ominous boom, and the bright light that sparkled off of the rolling fog disappeared, leaving a cold, dark shadow over the city.

With the city's heroes gone, the crowd began to disperse. The cheering died down, and the citizens' energy seemed to dissipate completely. In fact, Fox thought he saw expressions of sadness and anger hanging over their faces as they passed.

With the almost glorious light gone, Fox realized the true nature of the city. The streets were grimy and littered with trash, the nearby houses were falling apart and covered in makeshift patches. The giant wall and its towers which surrounded the city were riddled with cracks and defects. And the sky above was not bright and golden with sunlight, but dark and clouded. Amidst all the drab gray concrete and rusty metal, Fox began to notice splashes of red.

The towers placed around the city in no particular pattern each were capped by some sort of silo at the top that reminded Fox of the observatories back on Corneria. Each Silo was opened towards the east, where Somniadux and Sage had gone, to reveal a long, red metal barrel easily the length of an ocean liner in each one.

"What... what are those?" Fox asked, pointing. The cannons were all over the city; big ones, small ones; cannons positioned on the tops of houses, cannons protruding from silos atop the towers, and cannons protruding from the sides of the wall that encircled the city.

"Oh, those?" Rem answered. "That has to do with our job. In fact, they're the whole purpose of this city."

"Everyone's job here revolves around firing those cannons," Lucid continued.

"Firing? What? At who?"

"At Morpheus, silly!"

"Come on!" Rem said, pulling Fox down from the stack of crates, "We have to get going. It's nearly time for the First Volley!"

Jumping down off the crates, Fox followed Rem and Lucid down the smog-covered streets, which were now surprisingly empty.

"Everyone's gone to their jobs, you see," Rem explained. "People have to make the ammunition for the cannons, meld the cannons, clean the cannons, load the cannons, aim the cannons... and _fire_ the cannons."

"That's all anyone ever does?"

"The whole city revolves around it. Come on, we don't want to be late to the First Volley! We can watch the number seven cannon!"

Fox followed Rem and Lucid to the base of the nearest tower where the skeleton of a rusted red elevator shaft stood. At first, the car was nowhere to be seen, but following a sudden release of scalding steam, the platform rose from below the ground. A troop of workers ascended with the elevator, their faces and species impossible to discern behind caked layers of black soot. All of them wore the same combination of stained coveralls, worn out boots, red hardhats, and frayed facial masks. As they passed by coughing and wheezing, Fox searched the expressions on their faces only to find blank, soulless stares that looked at and saw nothing, not even each other.

After the last worker had filed out, carefully clutching his lunch box, Lucid, Rem, and Fox stepped into the now empty elevator platform and closed the wire-frame gate behind them. The rather airy elevator car gave a sudden lurch and began rising up the side of cannon tower 7, made evident by the large red "7" marked with fading red paint on the side of the gray building.

Once the elevator had risen above the wall, Fox stared out across the outside world. As usual, the sun was hidden from sight, this time by the thick layer of gray, sluggish clouds that oozed across the sky. Just outside the walls was a barren desert, the muddy yellow sands of which stretched out as far as the eye could see; across dunes and hills, over flats and sand banks. Empty. Void of life.

Next, Fox's vision drifted down at the city below. He gulped when he realized just how high up they had been taken, and stumbled back away from the edge. The car slowly rose all the way up to the silo on the tower's apex where the monstrous cannon was located. Stepping out onto the dome, the trio joined another group of children watching.

Occupying most of the space of the dome was a massive, metal cannon, covered in rust and peeling red paint. A task force of moles wearing tattered work clothes and hard hats scurried around like ants, scrubbing down the cannon with soap and water, loading the barrel with shells from hooked cranes, and making complicated calculations on large pieces of scrap paper. For some reason, the entire Infranimus Dreamscaping Service was vigorously at work on the cannon.

"Surely they can't need _all_ of this to hit just a single guy!" Fox exclaimed, skeptically, as he watched a shinning metal shell slide down the cannon's barrel.

"All of this is for destroying Morpheus' flying castle," Lucid explained. "It lies just above the clouds, almost out of reach."

"Each day, the city fires three volleys at him, and each day we chip a little more away from the castle and get that much closer to killing Morpheus."

"How long has the city done this?" Fox asked.

"Since Morpheus was exiled."

"Well... how long ago was that?"

Neither Lucid nor Rem was able to answer Fox's question, instead meeting him with blank stares.

"Cannon loaded!" one of the moles called out.

"Oh, good!" Rem cheered. "They're about to fire it!"

But before they could go through with the operation, a brown-furred hound dog stepped out into the silo's atrium. He was clad in a bright red military vest and cap, with numerous gold medals pinned to his chest. As he marched past Fox's group, the small vulpine noticed they had begun to run out of room for his many rewards, and had resorted to pinning the hound's medals to his back.

The pompous leader stepped onto a yellow lift beside the cannon which raised him up to a control balcony on its side. The hound stepped into the balcony, then turned to face the crew of moles neatly assembled in their ranks.

"Citizens of Taihō !" the canine began, "Your efforts to defeat the evil scum Morpheus have not been in vain! Even now, our scouts are reporting the entire left wing of the castle is in shambles, and I am proud to announce it has been because of the hard work and perseverance of the crew of Cannon 7!"

The other children around Fox cheered, but the moles remained as still and silent as statues.

"We have been at war with the traitor for years, but even now our righteous hatred and anger have not cooled! No; it will not be satisfied until we have justice! We will repay Morpheus for all the pain and suffering he has inflicted upon the peoples of Infranimus! We, the brave citizens of Taihō, and you, the efficient laborers of Cannon 7, will bear the burden of justice. An eye for an eye!"

"A tooth for a tooth," the moles responded in monotone voices.

"Alright then." The commander drew a long, ornamental saber from his belt and pointed it along the barrel of the cannon at the outside world. "Begin targeting procedure!"

"Target; 37 degrees vertical!" The foreman of the moles called out.

"37 degrees vertical!" Another repeated.

The cannon's red barrel was slowly cranked upwards with a whirring of gears, cranks, and machinery.

"Minus 15 degrees horizontal!"

"Minus 15 degrees horizontal!"

The base of the cannon, positioned on a large, flat wheel rotated towards the right.

"Protective masks on!"

"Protective masks on!"

"Oh, here, you'll need this," Rem said as he handed Fox what seemed to be a combination of a gas mask and ear mufflers.

Fox stared around at the rest of the children and the workmen to find them all donning the hideous masks. "This is insane..."

Glancing down at his golden watch, the hound said, "Perfect timing. Just a few more seconds... and... FIRE!"

"Wait!" Someone yelled, pointing towards the barrel. "Alistair's still in there! He's cleaning!"

The sound of contented whistling echoed out of the cannon's barrel, but it was no use trying to stop the hectic machine now; the order had been given; the cannon, fired.

A noise louder than thunder blasted through the dome, and the cannon belched forth its projectile accompanied by a storm of fire and smoke. The missile, with the addition of a still oblivious Alistair, rapidly disappeared out of sight, while the mouth continued to pour forth a poisonous looking cloud of gas.

Cannon 7 was soon accompanied by the rest of the city's cannons, akin to the sound of every orchestra in the world playing Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, or all the thunder heard throughout a thunderstorm rumbling at the same exact time. The ground shook, machinery rattled, and several people fell to the ground from the sheer force of the noise and the kick from the cannon.

Fox found himself on the ground as the noxious fumes poured over him. A hand soon appeared out of the smog, and Fox accepted it. Lifted to his feet, he found the unsettling sight of both Rem and Lucid wearing gas masks.

"How long before we can take them off?" Fox asked, looking anywhere but his friends.

"Until the gas pours down into the city below."

Peering over the edge of the tower, the young fox watched as the poisonous emissions drifted down into the grimy streets, then into the mines below the tower, the same mines where they had seen workers leaving earlier.

"This... this is horrible."

* * *

><p>Many hours later, Fox found himself standing in line before some form of cafeteria. In front and behind him, faceless children stood in grubby clothes, tired after the events of the day. Fox had merely drifted through it all, but through the fog he was able to recall hours of labor spent assembling machinery for city of Taihō, with even longer time spent learning projectile physics in dimly lit classrooms.<p>

A child from behind pushed him forwards, and Fox realized it was his turn to receive his dinner. He grabbed a rusted, bent, tin tray from a stack on the counter and held it out for the server to fill. The ugly looking pig behind the counter scooped a ladle full of steaming, mushy liquid into his tray and dropped a spoon into the midst of it. The pile could have been anything except for food, and had never received anything so bad at his school's own cafeteria. He grimaced at the mush sloshing around on his tray, but he accepted the meal gratefully after such a long day.

The young vulpine sat down at the first empty table he came across, fishing his spoon out of the pile of mush. With one hand, he scooped the mixture of potatoes, gravy, and beans into his mouth, while with the other he held his nose shut. Once inside his mouth, the food went down easier, but it still was not a pleasant experience. What saddened him the most, however, was how the other children seemed to be use to it.

"Oh, there you are, Fox."

Fox looked up just as Lucid and Rem sat down opposite him with their own trays of food. Lucid immediately began digging into hers while Rem pushed his aside and pulled out a binder full of notes.

The fennec fox's ears perked up. "Really? Haven't you had enough school for one day?" she teased him.

The dark-skinned frog waved her off, instead whipping out a pencil and a scratch piece of paper. Opening his large textbook, he began completing the strenuous homework problems assigned for that night.

"Sometimes I think you actually like that stuff," Lucid continued.

Fox remained silent as he continued eating his... _food_.

"Our slimy friend here wants to be the one who aims the cannon," the fennec explained.

"RRRGH!" Rem growled. "Why are the equations they give so hard?"

"I never liked math that much," Fox finally said.

"It's from all of the constants you have to add in and multiply and divide by... they just don't make any sense! I've tried ignoring them, but then none of the cannonballs end up breaking the atmosphere! They all end up on the ground outside the city. Stupid constants..."

The amphibian banged his head against the table and refused to lift it.

Through a mouth full of food, Lucid joked, "Maybe you're right and the whole city of Taihō is wrong. Maybe none of them end up hitting the city after all."

As if he just had an epiphany, Rem raised his head. His eyes bulged excitedly as he cried, "That's it!"

Lucid stared at him blankly, cheeks bulging with food.

"All the scientists and teachers added in the constants to make it possible! Without them, we wouldn't be able to it anything. With them, it would work on paper, but if you take them away..."

Rem scribbled and doodled furiously on his scratch paper until smoke rose.

"I've got it! Here, Fox, look at this!"

The frog triumphantly turned his work to Fox who glanced over it curiously. Rem guided his friend through his calculations.

"You see, if you remove all the extra constants and operations, the equations become simple trigonometric ones. You know, simple projectile physics."

"Yeah, right, simple..." Fox mumbled.

"Then, if we use the actual equations, the cannonballs would all end up... here, miles away in the desert. I bet if we traveled out there, we'd find a big crater where they all landed."

"But Rem, you can't be serious," the fennec said. "That would mean the teacher's and the officials lied to us."

"It's a conspiracy!" Rem exclaimed excitedly. "Illuminati confirmed!"

Lucid clamped her hands over Rem's large mouth. "Shhh! Don't say things like that!" she hissed. "Do you want to get exiled? Or killed?!"

Rem tried to speak, but Lucid wouldn't let him. "Here, just shut up and eat your food! And I don't want to hear another word about it!"

The trio finished eating their food, glancing around cautiously to make sure no one had listened in. Then, they took their trays back to the front and hurriedly made for the exit. Lucid paused at the door to dump Rem's homework into a trash bin, then ran to catch up with her friends.

"You think anyone saw us?" she asked, nervous.

"I don't think so," Fox said. "But let's get out of here fast. Where are we off to next?"

Behind them, the serving pig glared suspiciously at the children's backs through the folds of fat that covered his face. Then, when they had disappeared from the cafeteria, he reached into the trashcan and began fishing around.

* * *

><p>Later that night, Fox, Lucid, and Rem found their beds in the children's dormitory. Their sleeping quarters were located inside one of the towers. All around the circular wall rose layers of beds that stretched to the very top; the highest ones must have been 20 stories up.<p>

Fox's bed – "cot" was a more fitting word – was barely big enough for him to lie down in, and was so thin that he constantly feared rolling off to his death on the floor hundreds of feet below. All around him, hundreds of children were also hitting the sac in the brief period of rest they had before morning... and more work.

There were some empty holes in the wall were chunks of it, including the cots they held, had broken free and fallen off. Through these cracks shown a dim, ambient light that filled the otherwise pitch black room. Outside, a cannon would go off every once in a while, lighting the sky with an orange, fiery glow, and shaking their dormitory tower with a wave of force. Even now, Fox found it hard to sleep.

Pulling the paper thin covers over his small frame, Fox scooted to the back of his bed, as far away from the edge as he could.

"Hey, Rem... are you awake?"

A muffled reply came from the cot above him. "Yeah. Are you?"

"The people who run this city..."

"You mean the officials?"

"Yeah. They... they really hate Morpheus, don't they?"

Lucid spoke up from the cot beneath Fox's. "Of course they do. He attacked the people of Infranimus with lots of monsters, monsters he made. Don't you remember?"

"Yeah... but we've never seen Morpheus. How do you know he even exists?"

Lucid faltered for a moment. "Because... because he has too. He's the reason we're firing the cannons. We have to attack someone."

"Have either of you actually seen his castle? The one in the sky?"

The dormitory was silent before both of his friends replied, "No."

"We just have to trust what the grown-ups and the officials say," Lucid elaborated.

Fox twisted in his bed to face the wall, burrying his head underneath the covers.

"I hate this place."

The vulpine slowly drifted off into sleep amidst the constant boom of cannons firing at...

* * *

><p><strong> AN: Why hello again! I bet you thought this story was gone for good!**

** Nope!**

** But wow, it's been nearly a year since I last updated it. Last chapter was published back in July of last year. The reason it's been so long since I posted was... well, it's complicated.**

** I think the main reason is because that was when I began working on _The Hunting Party. _That story, along with _TAC, _took up the majority of my time. I worked on them so long that I soon forgot about _Dream's Brink _altogether, and when I tried to pick it up again (this chapter was started before Christmas of last year) I found I had lost all inspiration for it. Yep, the flame had just disappeared. So, instead, I focused on finishing _TAC, _which I did on Easter of this year. From Easter on my time was taken up by schooly stuff so that I didn't get another chance to work on it. I even labeled it canceled/on hiatus for a while. During that time, I seriously thought about canceling it. I came pretty close to just posting an epilogue in which I deconstructed the whole thing and explained all the layers to the story, but then I got the chance to look back over everything again... and I realized I just couldn't put this story out of it's misery.**

** So yeah, surprise! New chapter! Now that _TAC _is done and I've graduated and everything, I'll be able to update more frequently.**

** This chapter specifically was inspired by the _Cannon Fodder _segment of the anime film _Memories. _It's really... depressing. Can you tell? It's only 20 minutes or so, of anyone feels like watching it.**


	9. Exile of the Mind

**Chapter 9: Exile of the Mind**

**Or,**

**Stray Arrows**

* * *

><p><em>"Stranger in a Strange Land" - 30 Seconds to Mars<em>

* * *

><p>"Fox, Fox! Wake up, Fox!"<p>

"Hmm, huh? What is it?"

Fox woke up to Lucid violently shaking him. Once awake he stretched his mouth in a wide yawn and sat up in his small cot. It took a while for his vision to readjust, a constant problem that plagued him in the dream world. Every time he woke it felt like emerging from a pool of water into the air or from a cave into the light.

"It's Rem!" the fennec continued. "They've got him!"

Fox shook his head, trying to clear the rippling shadows from it. "What? 'They' who? Who's got him?"

"The secret police! They came for him this morning while you were asleep!"

"Oh this is bad... they must have found out about our talk last night, but how could they have?"

Lucid gestured with a wide sweeping arc to the rest of the tower dormitory. "They have eyes and ears everywhere! Anyone who sees or hears something strange has to report it."

"This is bad. This is so bad! We have to go after him before they... what would they do to him?"

At this point, Lucid's voice began to rise in pitch from fear. "They could banish him from the city forever! That sentence alone is as good as death; once you're out there in the desert, there's no way to live! There's no food, no water, no nothing. Or they could make it a public execution... or even worse, they could torture him!"

"We can't let that happen, no matter what! We have to go after him!"

"B-but what if they c-catch us?" Lucid stammered, tears springing to her eyes.

Fox grabbed Lucid's hands in his own and looked her in the eye. "Lucid, we can't let him be exiled or killed, even if it means the same for us. That's what friends would do; we have to stick together... we have to save Rem!"

Lucid sniffed and wiped her face with the hem of her nightgown. "Ok... you're right. We've gotta get him back!"

"Now, where would they take him?" Fox questioned her.

"They're probably holding a trial somewhere in the justice department right now. If you want, I could take you there, but we'd have to be sneaky about it."

"Sure! Let's go!"

Fox slipped out of the covers and grabbed his clothes that lay balled up in the corner of his cot, quickly slipping them over his pajamas. Lucid ducked out of his little alcove in the wall and grabbed onto the ladder that ran all the way to the ground level of the tower. Once he was finished pulling on his clothes, Fox swung out onto the ladder as well and began following her down.

Though Fox couldn't see it, the sun must have broken through the clouds outside, as several golden rays poured through the windows, cracks, and holes in the tower's walls. The beams of light illuminated the floor below them... _hundreds _of feet below them. Upon looking down to check on Lucid, Fox once again realized just how high up they were. His heart began to beat faster, and his blood raced in his veins.

Fox quickly latched onto the ladder with an iron grip and turned his attention anywhere but down. As the pair of foxes continued their descent, Fox closed his eyes completely and focused solely on climbing down.

This strategy seemed to work; before Fox knew it, they had reached the bottom. It was a long climb, but eventually they made it.

Once he was upon solid ground again, Fox leaned against the wall and slowly slid down it until he was sitting. Breathing heavily, he muttered, "How can anyone sleep in a bunk bed..."

"Come on, silly," Lucid said, grabbing his hand and trying to pull him up, "We've gotta hurry! Roll call is in a few minutes, and we don't want them to notice we're missing!"

"Sorry, I was just catching my breath." Accepting her hand, Fox let Lucid help him up, and the two took off down the hall.

* * *

><p>After a few minutes, the pair had successfully snuck through the streets of Taihō city to the justice department – a gray, imposing, pyramid-shaped building not too far from the children's dormitory.<p>

When they reached the building, Fox and Lucid crouched behind an overflowing trash bin to survey it. To their dismay, the only door that lead in or out of the building was heavily guarded by a division of armed soldiers.

"Oh no," Lucid lamented, sitting down hopelessly behind the dumpster. "Now we'll never get in."

Suddenly, Fox's eyes alighted on a trail of powdery white footprints on the otherwise gray and filthy street.

"Look!" he whispered, pointing at the footprints. "The white rabbit left those!"

"The white rabbit?" Lucid questioned, looking excitedly over his shoulder at the prints.

"Yeah, Guide said the white rabbit would lead us to Morpheus... I wonder what they little guy's doing here..."

Lucid took off around the side of the dumpster. "Well come on; let's follow them! Maybe they lead to Rem."

The pair of vulpines followed the rabbit's tracks into a trash-filled alley between two buildings, stepping over heaps of rubbish and ducking under loose two-by-fours and sheets of rusted metal siding. Eventually, they found that the alley lead all the way to one of the sides of the pyramid, its blank concrete wall stretching thousands of feet into the air in front of them.

Scouring the ground, Fox and Lucid tracked the white footprints all the way to the base of the wall in front of them, where they were surprised to find a drainage tunnel that opened out into the alley. The iron grate that usually blocked trespassers from entering the justice building had been torn out from the wall and lay in a bent heap beside the drain. The tracks disappeared in the muddy water inside the tunnel.

Pausing for a moment, Fox reached out and offered his hand to Lucid.

"You ready for this?" he asked. "It's awfully dark in there."

Taking his paw, Lucid answered, "Of course I am. We have to do this for Rem."

"For Rem," Fox repeated. Stepping forwards, Fox lead Lucid into the dark recesses of the justice department building.

* * *

><p>For the most part, the drainage system was pitch black, reducing the pair's visibility to zero. The tunnels beneath the secret police building seemed to split off in every direction like a maze; they would have gotten lost inside the tunnels if not for the white rabbit, who left a single paw print on the side of the sewage pipe every once in a while which glowed faintly enough to be seen.<p>

The tunnels of the building's sewage system were dark, wet, and smelly, but, to make matters worse, the walls were growing closer and closer together the farther the two foxes trekked. Fox thought his fear of heights was enough, but now he realized he also had claustrophobia. On all sides, the circular wall pressed in on them, threatening to crush them if they went too far. Eventually, the pair was forced to stoop to keep from scrapping their heads against the top of the pipe, then they had to crawl completely, barely able to squeeze through at all. Yet the glowing paw marks lead on, leaving Fox and Lucid no choice but to follow.

Just when they thought they couldn't crawl any further, Fox noticed a sickly yellow light glowing further up the tunnel. It wasn't much, but it was a sign that they were nearly out.

"I think I see a light up ahead; it's just a little further Lucid!"

In less than a minute, Fox reached the source of light – a hole in the top of the pipe that lead into a dimly lit room. Turning himself so that he lay face up on the bottom of the cylindrical drain, he grabbed both sides of the hole and pulled himself through.

Once he escaped the cramped drainage pipes, Fox stretched out on the floor of what appeared to be a restroom, grateful to be in a wide open area again. Then, as Lucid's paws appeared above the lid of the drain, Fox scurried over and helped her out. They lay on the floor for a minute, painting and enjoying the open air again, even if it was the inside of a filthy bathroom.

After they finished resting, they walked over to the exit and cautiously poked their heads out. The halls of the justice department were fortunately empty, and Fox quickly noticed a large pair of dark oak doors just a few meters to the right of the restroom. The white rabbit hadn't lead them astray so far; could Rem be behind them?

With the utmost care, Fox and Lucid crept out of the restroom and over to the tall wooden doors. With some effort, they managed to crack one of them open, leaving a small slit through which they could watch the proceedings in the room.

The courtroom was octagonal in shape, with each side containing rows of pews that lead steeply down to a wooden podium at the center. Fox's eyes widened. Chained to the podium was none other than Rem. The amphibian was sweating profusely and shivering up a storm, his bulging eyes darting around the courtroom wildly. A single ray of light shone down on the frog, but the rest of the room was shrouded in darkness.

Surrounding him in the stepped pews were an array of officials, all of whom wore long black robes and silver masks that completely covered their faces. The only other person not wearing a mask stepped forwards and descended the flight of stairs until he also was illuminated by the light. Fox and Rem nearly gasped when they saw who it was, but they held in their breaths and remained silent.

"Go ahead," one of the masked animals said in a booming voice, "What is the charge you hold against the boy?"

The same pig who had served their food the other day turned to face Rem, pointing an accusing hoof at him.

"I saw this frog conspiring in the cafeteria yesterday," he grunted. "He is guilty of thought crime against the communal city of Taihō!"

"What is the nature of the thought crime?" another one of the masked officials asked.

"Scientific heresy!" the swine stated. "He has questioned the teachers and the honorable scientists of this city!"

A surge of hushed whispers filled the courtroom in response to the accusation, but a third official asked, "Were there any other witnesses to the crime?"

The cafeteria pig shook his fat head, his layers of chins flopping about wildly. "No your honor, only myself – but I found this in the trash after he discarded it."

He reached into the pocket of his apron and pulled out a series of wrinkled papers which he presented to the questioning official. The masked animal accepted the notes and examined them with scrutinizing eyes. When he was finished, the official held aloft the papers and stated, "The pig speaks the truth! The boy has doubted the effectiveness of our cannons against Morpheus' floating castle; here he claims none of our cannons will ever hit the enemy!"

This time the courtroom was filled with several gasps and indignant cries of outrage. Amidst all the commotion, Rem finally worked up the courage to respond.

"B-but I did all the work and the c-c-calculations! It's t-true!"

The first official raised his voice above the rest of the jury and stated, "You have committed a serious offense, young man. You have doubted the infallibility not only of your teachers and the scientists of this city, but also of the officials above you! A military community cannot function as one if there is dissent and confusion in the ranks – confusion caused by _you. _I believe this is an open and shut case; we have a witness, written evidence, and a confession from your own mouth."

The masked animal raised a large, wooden gavel above his desk and looked down menacingly upon Rem.

"From this moment onwards, I sentence you, Rem, to – "

"WAIT!" Fox shouted at the top of his lungs.

In the confusion that followed, Fox burst through the oak doors and stumbled down the steps to Rem's side, breathless.

"What do we have here?" one of the officials mused.

"Fox!" Rem exclaimed, "W-what are you doing here?"

Turning to Rem, Fox said, "I'm sorry... I should have been a better friend to you."

"What d-do you mean?"

"All those times people made fun of you and beat you up... I should have stood up for you then, but I didn't. So I'm doing it now! I'm not going to stand aside and let people push you around anymore, Rem!"

The cafeteria pig stumbled forward and pointed at Fox. "He's another one! He was one of the children the frog was whispering with!"

"Yeah, so what?" Fox stated, voice dripping with rebellion. "I'm tired of this stupid city! All you do is fire your stupid cannons at a castle that probably doesn't even exist! No one ever has any fun around here; everyone is so obsessed with your cannons that you've forgotten about the rest of life! Have you ever taken a look at the people who live here? They're starving! They're dying from the smoke from all the cannons! They're dying from mining underground! The streets are filthy, and the food tastes like it was scooped out of a trashcan and put in a blender! Everyone around here sacrifices so much for your cannons, just to fire them off into the clouds and not even hit anything!"

"Lies from an ignorant child! What do _you_ understand about this city? _We_ are the only ones protecting Infranimus! _We _are the only ones who can unite the people of this world! _We _are the only ones brave enough to sacrifice our livelihood to defeat the enemy! These things you talk about are all unimportant! Food, living conditions, fun – they're all useless!"

"The most useless things around here are the cannons!" Fox shouted back, angrily. "Everyone who lives here is doomed to die stuck in this city! Even the other kids... all they'll ever know is working these stupid cannons! You stick them into your schools from birth and treat them like machines! Morpheus isn't killing people; you are! You sent Guide and Oneir out into the desert to go after him, but they'll just die out there! You killed Guide! You _killed _him!"

"Such insolence!"

"Heresy!"

"Thought crime!"

The indignant cries arose from all eight corners of the room while accusing words rained down on Fox from every side.

"Without a common enemy," the official continued, "Without camaraderie – without brotherhood, without sacrifice – we cannot have unity! Maintaining and operating the cannons is the only thing that keeps us united; fighting Morpheus gives us the strength to put aside our differences and come together in common cause! Without him and the cannons, this city wouldn't exist!"

"Well maybe it shouldn't!" Fox concluded. "If Morpheus isn't even real, if you can't even hit anybody, then maybe there's need for all of this! There's no need for _you_!"

"ENOUGH!" The official exclaimed, bringing his gavel down hard on his desk, the thunder of which echoed loudly throughout the room. "Young boy, you shall be made an example of; I hereby banish you from this city – alone. You shall never set foot inside these walls or see your friends again... on pain of death!"

Before Fox could even put up a fight, the robed figures descended from the pews in a massive swarm. From every side arms groped and grabbed, silver masks flashed, and black cloth suffocated, threatening to drown Fox in a thick sea of darkness. He stretched out his arm above the whirlpool of animals, reaching in vain for anything to grab onto, but his hand grasped nothing.

The last sight Fox saw before he was completely pulled under was the doors to the courtroom being thrown open and the officials grabbing ahold of Lucid, who screamed and twisted to get free. Fox opened his mouth to call out, but his head sank beneath the surface, and the world around him went black.

* * *

><p>An indiscernible amount of time passed until Fox awoke. When he did, he seemed to burst forth from a wall of black-clad officials and fall face-first into sand. When he hit the soft ground, Fox spun to face the crowd, but the massive gates of the city had already slammed shut in his face, leaving him trapped outside.<p>

Crawling to his feet, the young vulpine began scaling a large, sand-covered dune that stood in front of the gates. When he arrived at the top, Fox turned around and faced the imposing city of Taihō. The massive wall that encircled the city towered hundreds of feet above him, but even then the cannon-housing silos rose up over the wall, making the city as thick as any skyscraper-filled metropolis. The cannons boomed, the smoke and gas retched into the air, and the blemish of a city continued to mar the cloudy skyline.

He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth, staring up at the blank walls and the closed gates, suddenly feeling all of his experiences of injustice and cruelty turning into rage and hate. Fox threw his arms back and let out as loud of a yell as he could, clenching his eyes shut and opening his mouth wide; he didn't stop shouting until all the air in his lungs had been forced out and converted into pure volume. Then, when the last breath left him, he panted for air and listened to his angry screams echoing off the concrete wall and into the empty desert.

Yet when the last echo faded, nothing had changed. The cannons continued their incessant pounding, the pillars of smoke continued to belch forth into the sky, and the unmoving gates remained closed. The monstrosity of Taihō loomed thousands of feet above Fox, dwarfing the small child. Compared to it, he felt like an insignificant speck – a useless nobody. Slowly, a sinking feeling of futility overtook him, and Fox gradually realized that he was completely... and utterly... powerless.

Steaming with anger and sorrow, the vulpine whirled around and set off down the opposite side of the dune.

* * *

><p>For hours Fox trudged through the constantly shifting sand.<p>

The desert surrounding the city was formless and empty, devoid of all color. Surprisingly, Fox welcomed the change; unlike the cramped and filthy city, the desert stretched on for miles, with nothing to look at besides the immaculate blanket of white and gray sand. It seemed to spread out endlessly in every direction like an ocean, the ground rising every once in awhile to create a slight dune or dipping to make a shallow valley.

The sky was covered in a thick layer of chrome-colored clouds that broiled and stirred more violently than the soft waves of the desert landscape. On the edge of the horizon, Fox could see the effects of the setting sun upon the sky, but he searched for the orb of light in vain; it had already slipped beneath the rolling dunes, leaving the skyline painted in varying hues of red and pink – the only color visible in the otherwise gray desert.

The lone fox had nowhere to go. All he knew was that the city lay behind him, and he could never go back. Ever since he met Somniadux outside the Dimlight Forest, the somber man had been his guide, leading him through the wild and urban lands of Infranimus. Whenever he fell asleep or lost consciousness, no matter the location, Guide would be there when he woke up. But now...

Now Guide had abandoned him.

The strange vulpine had disappeared with Oneir before even saying goodbye, leaving Fox, Rem, and Lucid to fend for themselves in that nightmare of a city. It was they, _they _who abandoned Fox and left him to suffer, to be turned out of the city and left to wander all alone. Slowly, Fox shifted the wrath of his anger upon Guide, and used it provide himself with the will to keep going. The anger constantly fueled his mobility and direction, egging him onwards into the empty desert.

_It's all Guide's fault, _Fox thought. _He's the one who left me all alone. He's the one who found me when I first ended up here and ordered me to get __up __and start moving__. __He's the one who forced me to follow him and some stupid white rabbit to get revenge on some guy called Morpheus. He's the one who controls all the dreams... and the one who makes the nightmares. I'll never speak to him again. Even __if see him __once more__, I'll never – _

Slowly, Fox slowed his pace to a stop and stared at the sight before him, jaw dropping.

Craters. Lots of them.

Large, spherical sections of the desert had been torn away, revealing layers of gravel and rock underneath the initial blanket of sand. In many ways, the sight reminded Fox of the surface of Corneria's moon littered with hundreds and hundreds of craters caused by asteroids. In some areas, the ground had been completely pulverized by constant impacts, and Fox knew what had done the job.

_So it's true, _he thought. _Rem was right. There is no floating castle. There __i__s no Morpheus. __Only a bunch of craters out in the middle of nowhere, where all the stray fire goes. Since the beginning, the city's been shooting at... nothing._

All of that sacrifice, all of that death, but most of all, all of that pointless hate, and it was all for nothing. The official's anger was aimed nowhere, like firing a gun into the sky, o throwing a rock into the ocean. It was as simple as that.

Half-heartedly, Fox nudged a rock over the edge and into the valley, watching and listening as it fell into the abyss. He didn't know how, exactly, but the sight of the futile destruction had changed him. Seeing the fruit of all of their anger... it just seemed pointless.

Now, even though the anger had drained out of him and he had no more motivation left, Fox once again turned and kept walking... and he wouldn't stop.

* * *

><p><strong> AN: The real cliffhangers are the endings where Fox _does__n't_ die.**


	10. Morpheus

**Chapter 10: Morpheus**

**Or,**

**The Demon in the Castle**

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><p><em>"Revenge" - Chevelle<em>

* * *

><p>For days, it seemed, Fox walked. The only way he could tell the passage of time was from the constantly brightening and darkening clouds that covered the desert, and from his increasingly empty stomach. He was tired and weary from incessantly treading up and down dune after dune, grains of sand were lodged in his feet, biting with each step, his mouth and throat had become as dry as the wasteland around him, and his stomach was seizing up from lack of food.<p>

Fox felt like his rational mind was slowly leaving him; the more he pressed onward through the desert, the more he became like a mindless animal, or a machine running on fumes. All he knew to do was walk, walk...

Though he never once saw the sun, its scalding rays penetrated the clouds to the sand below, heating up the desert so that it burned his feet and evaporated every drop of liquid from his body.

But it was different now; it was nighttime. It had been for a while, and somewhere in the back of his mind, Fox was aware that day was coming soon. It wouldn't change anything, anyway – it would just suck more life out of him.

Suddenly, he felt his feet brush against a clump of grass.

Raising his head, Fox squinted to make out what lay ahead of him. On the horizon glowed several thin ribbons of multicolored light, the first signs of morning. Silhouetted against the faint sunrise was a sparse forest of palm trees and leafy bushes that poked like sea urchins into the predawn sky.

_An oasis, _Fox thought. The sound of his own thoughts made him jump, for his mind had been on silent autopilot for days.

Stumbling forwards, the vulpine pushed aside the dry leaves of underbrush until his swollen feet found the pool of water at the center of the hollow. Fox threw his arms wide and fell face-first into the lake of water, arms spread wide as if he were hugging a loved one. He sank a foot underneath the water, the cool liquid filling and rejuvenating every pore in his dried body.

When his feet met the muddy bottom, he lifted his head above the surface and gasped for air, sending ripples across the surface of the water. Without wasting any more time, he cupped his paws and scooped up large handfuls of water to his mouth, lapping it up greedily. Fox felt as if he had never tasted anything as cool or refreshing in all of his life.

After finally drinking his fill, Fox looked up at the oasis around him, which was still shrouded in the predawn mist and darkness. Across the lake there appeared to be a large mound or hill covered in spiky cacti, but it was hard for him to make it out.

Deciding to investigate, Fox began wading through the pool towards the hill.

As he grew closer, the young vulpine noticed that the mound was the source of mist that covered the oasis; spurts of steam whistled through cracks and holes in the dark hill, filling the fertile hollow with cloudy fog. Then, when he was no more than ten yards away from it, the flow of steam suddenly cut off, leaving the misty clouds to evaporate.

When the last curl of mist had dissipated into the air, a ray of sunlight broke through the clouds on the horizon and illuminated the mound. When its true nature was revealed to Fox, the vulpine gasped and stumbled back in the water.

On the bank in front of him sat a metal-plated castle covered in windows, towers, spires, and smokestacks of different shapes and sizes. Extending from either side were rickety steel legs and claws that gave the castle the overall appearance of a mechanical spider crouching to drink from a pool of water. While the castle was large – towering a hundred feet over Fox – it was far from imposing. In fact, the monstrosity had a rather comical appeal about it. In the end, the castle's ridiculously clumsy appearance helped alleviate some of the initial fear he felt.

It hadn't been an illusion that the walking castle was in the process of drinking; several flexible tubes extended from the walls of the castle into the pool, sending small waves of ripples across the otherwise still surface.

For a moment, Fox debated approaching the castle. Though he had no idea who lived inside, or if the mobile castle itself was alive, the fortress was his only hope of escape from the desert. If he stayed, the oasis would provide him with an endless source of water, but there didn't appear to be anything to eat, and Fox was starving. And, if he ever tried to leave the fertile haven, there was no way he would ever make it across the desert alive.

Suddenly, a metallic creaking sound filled the oasis, and Fox's eyes darted to a rusted iron door at the base of the castle that had just swung open. The coincidental act of welcoming was all it took to make up Fox's mind. He waded through the rest of the water and climbed up onto the opposite bank where he shook himself dry. Then, he quietly tiptoed to the open door and slipped inside.

The interior of the castle was illuminated by an array of mismatched furnaces placed in the hallways or rooms. Glowing orange fires shown through barred grates in the stomachs of the iron, copper, and steel chambers, painting the rusted metal walls with warm, flickering lights. The interior would have reminded Fox of Taihō City if it were not for the more natural feel the castle possessed, perhaps helped by the earthy colors of the metals, the potted plants of various species, and the desks covered in plates of half-finished food and yellowed papers filled with notes.

As Fox explored more of the castle, he realized it was the home or laboratory of a scientist who loved his work. One room he ventured into was filled with hundreds of types of plant specimens; dour red leaves and black, curling bark from what he later learned was Dimlight Forest, the first location he literally dropped into in Infranimus; pine cones and saplings with teal green needles from the evergreen forest at the edge of Icelus city; bright flowers and lime-green grass from the fairgrounds atop Sulam Yaakov mountain; and, an assortment of desert cacti and flowers that must have been collected from the wastelands outside Taihō city. Whoever owned the castle must have moved it a lot; it sure got around.

Another desk in the same room was dedicated to hybrid plants, the likes of which Fox had never seen before; Venus flytraps with dangling fluorescent lures that glowed in the dim light of the castle; spiny balls of cacti that inflated and deflated like balloons; and twisting and turning banzai trees that seemed to be at the mercy of some invisible snake charmer.

In the next room Fox was confronted by an assortment of nicknacks and doodads that he had trouble identifying. He recognized different builds of orreries constructed from gold or bronze disks and wires, some of which used multicolored stones and baubles as planets. Rusted coppery machine parts lay strewn around the room in boxes or crates, giving the illusion that they were piles of treasure hidden away in a dark cave. One box contained an assortment of navigational equipment – spyglasses, telescopes, sextants, and rolled up paper maps.

Amidst all the muted earthy colors the room contained, a small splash of purple caught Fox's attention. Curious, Fox followed the dash of color to a wooden pillar in one corner of the crowded room; atop the stand sat a lone violet trapped in a crystal casing. As the sparkling light caught and reflected in the crystal dazzled his eyes, Fox realized he had seen it somewhere before. He couldn't explain it, but he had a funny feeling about the ornament, as if he had just found something that had been lost.

Glancing around to make sure the owner of the castle wasn't watching, Fox whipped the blue crystal from off the stand and stashed it in his pocket. He had never felt the impulse to steal from anyone before, but, somehow, he felt like this was important.

After turning away from the empty stand, Fox noticed a doorway in the opposite wall. The open door lead to a sterile, white room completely at odds with the rest of the castle; it was brightly lit by fluorescent ceiling lights, neat, orderly, clean, and equipped with modern technology that far outshone anything the mobile castle could offer. In fact, the strange white room was unlike any other Fox had seen in the castle – unlike anything he had seen in Infranimus, for that matter.

As he stared at the pristine white machinery and glowing LED displays on the other side of the door, Fox contracted another feeling – this one of unease. Something was wrong, _definitely_ wrong about the room. It didn't belong in Infranimus.

His curiosity welling up inside him again, Fox crept towards the strange world, step by step. The closer he got to the room and the more he worked his brain to understand the strange sight, the more he began to lose his senses. Black puffs of clouds danced at the corners of his vision, the mechanical noises of the castle faded from his ears, and his feet moved sluggishly across the floor. Eventually, his head began to spin, and he felt lighter – everything felt lighter, including the room around him, as if it were all floating upwards and could be blown away with the gentlest of breaths.

"Where are you going?" an indignant voice asked behind him.

Gasping, Fox whirled around to face the newcomer. As he did so, all thoughts of the room behind him fled from his mind, and the castle once again became a solid reality, returning his senses to normal.

Before him stood a tall, proud figure dressed in faded white; his lab coat fell all the way down to gray, pointed-toed boots past a silver belt strung with potions and vials of different colors. His head was covered in a thick hood made from sackcloth, and his face was hidden behind a spotless white plague mask – complete with glinting eyes, flaring nostrils, and pointed beak.

Fox froze in place, still as a statue. The owner of the castle had caught him trespassing, and Fox wasn't sure how forgiving he was. Certainly, in the white lab coat and bird mask he was an imposing figure, but there was a chance he was understanding... maybe.

The scientist took a step torwards Fox, who flinched and closed his eyes in fear, but he merely passed the small vulpine to close and lock the door to the strange room.

Stepping in front of Fox again, the scientist said, "Well well, what do we have here? Has a young fox lost its way?"

When Fox opened his eyes again, the scientist had produced a wriggling black mass of arms and feet from under his elbow and was carrying it in gloved hands towards a copper kettle across the room. The hog-like mass squealed and squirmed furiously, but the towering white figure firmly held onto it until he plopped it into the pot, its desperate cries swallowed by a soup of black goo.

Wiping his hands and removing his gloves, the scientist turned his attention to Fox. "Now, you're probably wondering who I am, are you not?"

Suddenly, it all clicked for Fox. The black goopy monster, the scientist outfit, the potions, the walking castle... it was clear who he was now.

With fear seizing him, Fox asked, "Are... are you M-Morpheus?"

"_Morpheus?" _the scientist asked, leaning in closer to Fox. "No, I'm An – er, yeah, that's me... Mobius, was it?"

"Morpheus," Fox repeated.

"Yeah, of course, Morpheus. That's me. And you must be Fo – well, what's your name, son?"

"Fox."

"Really?" the scientist asked, rubbing his hooded head. "Not something stupid like Apnea? Or maybe Hypnos?"

Just as confused as the scientist, Fox replied, "No, it's just Fox... I guess. Why?"

Morpheus straightened up and placed his hands on his hips. "Oh, I don't know. Everyone else around here seems to have a weird name. Even _I _have a weird one. So, heh heh... why so tense? There's nothing to be afraid of."

Suddenly clenching his fists in determination, Fox growled, "I'm _not_ afraid."

Morpheus chuckled, nervously. "Huh, well, angry, then?"

"I... I hate you... for everything you've done!"

"Everyone around here seems to hate me for some reason, I can't seem to figure out why. Here I am, a reclusive scientist come to study and explore the amazing world of Infranimus, and as soon as I set foot in this strange land, nothing but mistrust, hate, and anger are given to me. What did I ever do to deserve this, hmm?"

As Fox began to cautiously circle around Morpheus, the crystal ornament in his pocket knocked against his leg, and a flood of memories filled his mind.

"You killed Heramor," he accused the scientist.

"Killed? The Ice Queen? How?"

"You... you poisoned her! Didn't you!?"

"Pssh! Me? _Poison?_" Morpheus quickly hid the vials on his belt with the folds of his lab coat and rushed over to close the doors to a cabinet stacked with potions. "Noooo! Of course not!"

"Well, you made all of these monsters and set them loose to attack everyone!"

"Oh, _those_... I admit, some of my experiments may have gotten out of hand... but you must understand, Infranimus may be the world of dreams, but it is equally the world of nightmares. The fears of the townsfolk and villagers often rise up to prey on them, but it's a natural occurrence around these parts. Instead of facing their fears, they instead look for a scapegoat to blame. They pin all of their problems on me as they'd pin a tail on a donkey."

"But he said you were to blame for everything! Guide said you were the one who poisoned – "

"Ugh, _Guide! _Don't mention that name around here! He's my greatest enemy. Always going on about how I kill peasants and ruin the countryside, spreading nasty rumors, constantly leading the townspeople astray, trying to teach them stupid lessons... tell me, why do you trust him so?"

Fox had been trying to slip away from Morpheus, but now he found himself stopped in his tracks.

"Well, when I first came here, he was the one who found me and took care of me."

Morpheus scratched his chin and nodded. "I see, I see. You imprinted on him. Quite natural. But tell me, where was he taking you, and why?"

"Well, we... we went to Icelus, and that's where we found Ms. Heramor dying, so we went out to avenge her. We've been looking for you... to kill you."

"I see," Morpheus repeated, thoughtfully. "Well, is that what _you _wanted to do? Is that your _only _goal here? Isn't there something else you want?"

"Yeah, I guess. Killing you seems kinda stupid now. Guide... Guide promised me he could bring me back to life. He said there's this place called Agartha, where you can actually see the sun, and you can be brought back to life. I think he was going to take me there."

"_After _you killed me, is that it?"

When Fox did nothing but look down sheepishly, Morpheus continued. "Agartha's just a lie he made up, son. There's no such place. Trust me, I would know; I get around a lot."

Fox's heart was suddenly overcome with disappointment, and he felt like crying.

"So there's no way I'll ever wake up from here?"

The scientist thought for a moment. "Now now, I didn't say that. Being an off-worlder like yourself, I know how to leave this dream world. I constantly switch between them, in fact. It's as easy as walking through a door... but, before I show you the way out, there's something I want you to do for me."

"Well, sure, I'll do anything if you help me escape."

"Good, good! Now, I need you to lead Guide into a little trap for me."

"A trap?" Fox asked, uneasy.

"Just a little ambush, you see. That little snake has been a thorn in my side for far too long. You've seen firsthand how he lies to and misleads people. I just want to... get rid of him, so to speak."

"Get rid of him?" Fox questioned, surprised. "You mean, _kill_ him?"

"Now now," Morpheus hurriedly calmed him, "Nothing too painful. Remember, us off-worlders have to stick together. Haven't you figured out that everyone you've met so far isn't real? They're all just part of the dream! They're just figments of our imagination! It's just like betraying one of your toys or stuffed animals. But you and I; _we're _real. We're from the physical world. And you, sonny, want to get back. Help me out here, and I'll see to it that you return to reality."

The scientist extended a hand to the young vulpine. "Whaddya say?"

Fox thought for a moment, considering Morpheus' deal. He did have a point; they were the only real people in Infranimus. Maybe he was right about Guide; maybe he had been lying to Fox the entire time. He was certainly wrong about Morpheus.

Looking back up, Fox said, "Alright. I'll do it."

He reached out and shook the scientist's hand.

"Splendid, splendid. Now, you'll need the details, of course, and the master plan. Right now, that idiot Guide and his partner in crime Sage are following some white rabbit on a wild goose chase. As we speak, it's probably leading them back to its home in the Labyrinth."

"The Labyrinth?"

"Yes, it's a large maze of valleys, gulches, and caves just a little east of here. You're job will be to lead them in the wrong direction, towards an ambush I'll set up."

"But, but how will I no which wrong direction is the right direction? I mean, which wrong direction do I take?"

"_You, _my good lad, will follow something else."

Morpheus stepped over to an upturned top hat and grabbed a cauldron full of black goop. Tipping it over slightly, he let a good amount of the bubbling liquid spill into the hat until it was nearly full to the brim. Then, after dropping a carrot into the mixture, he stirred it with a copper ladle and pulled out a squirming black rabbit by the ears.

"You will follow this little critter – my black rabbit – wherever he goes. Just keep a good eye out for him, and tell Somniadux you're leading him towards the white rabbit. If I know him, the dupe will believe you. Do you got all that?"

"Yeah, I understand what to do."

"Swell, swell." Morpheus threw the wriggling black rabbit into one of his lab coat's pockets before brushing his hands off.

"But, how do I get there?" Fox asked. "I really don't want to walk through that desert again."

"No, no, of course not. I didn't build a walking castle for nothing, did I?"

The plague-mask wearing scientist lead Fox to an observation deck on the opposite end of the castle.

Pulling a few cranks and levers, Morpheus said, "I bet you've never had a real ride before in Infranimus, have you?"

"Well, there was this one ski lift..."

"Pssh, that's nothing compared to this."

The scientist hit one last button before the mobile castle let out a giant metallic moan and struggled to its feet. The castle swayed from side to side as it righted itself, and spurts of steam shot through different cracks and pipes in its side. Then, after tipping its front end down a little, the castle lurched forwards and started off out of the oasis.

"Wow, this is pretty cool!" Fox exclaimed as he gazed out at the landscape rushing past. The observation deck afforded the pair a great view of their surroundings, as the castle was raised several meters into the air by its thin iron legs. The sand quickly whipped by below them, and Fox couldn't believe how fast they were traveling; it was such a noticeable difference when compared to his sluggish crawl through the desert.

Finally, they came upon a large dune that was even taller than the castle, and Morpheus hit a lever that stopped their little ride. Slowly, the castle sank down onto the sand once again and bent its gangly metal legs.

Morpheus escorted Fox back to the same door through which he had entered. Waving him off, the scientist reminded him, "Remember, black rabbit, not white. Your friends are just above that hill right there, waiting for you, I believe."

"Uh, thanks, I guess. See you... later..."

"Bye-bye, lad."

As Fox turned his back on Morpheus to begin scaling the large dune in front of him, he heard the sound of the castle starting back up, and felt the pounding vibrations in the sand as it began walking away. Even now, he questioned the deal he had just made, but it still seemed like the right thing to do. _They're not real, _he repeated to himself. _They're not real._

* * *

><p><strong>AN: What? Howl's Moving Castle? Never heard of it.**


	11. The Labyrinth

**Chapter 11: The Labyrinth**

**Or,**

**The Winding Path of Fate**

* * *

><p><em>"The Littlest Things" - Streetlight Manifesto<em>

* * *

><p>Now that Fox stood at the bottom of the hill, the dune looked slightly larger than it had from a distance.<p>

Slightly.

The sandy hill towered several hundred feet above him, the foot of which seemed to be angled at a 60 degree incline. But if the dune was all that stood between him and his friends, he would climb it no matter how steep it was.

The base appeared to be made from hardened sandstone, though grains of softer sand often rained down from above like flurries of snow. Setting his foot on the baked sand, he began scaling the hill, though it wasn't easy. Walking upright on such a steep angle was out of the question, and Fox resorted to crawling on all fours. As he made his way up, his feet and hands constantly searched for outcroppings or nooks and crannies to grab ahold of – an increasingly difficult task.

The higher he went, the harder it was to climb; for one, the angle of the incline became steeper and steeper, slowly approaching a 90 degree wall; for another, the sun-baked sandstone gradually turned into loose sand. With each new foothold he found, the more likely it was to crumble into a landslide of sand beneath the weight of his feet. Every time he reached up to grab onto a ledge or handhold, it would only remain solid for a few seconds before giving way and raining down on top of him.

But Fox gritted his teeth and pressed on.

It seemed an eternity before he reached the top. His arms and legs were aching, and his hands were covered in blisters and caked with sand. The climb had taxed him heavily, and he paused more and more frequently with each meter he climbed, catching his breath.

None of the cliff made any sense; from far away in Morpheus' castle, it looked just like any other dune, just slightly larger. From the bottom, it appeared to be a steep hill made from sandstone. And now, the hill had become a cliff face as steep as a wall, taunting him. Looking back down in disbelief, Fox's stomach did a flip in his abdomen and he felt a falling sensation even though he still clung to the side of the cliff. It would be so easy to just let go and fall back down; he could even feel it now, the rushing sensation of the wind, the feeling of weightlessness...

Fox shook his head to clear the tempting thoughts from his mind. He had to keep climbing.

Turning his attention back up the slope towards his destination, he noticed little shoots of grass waving atop the cliff. Grabbing a hold of the cliff side above him, his fingers dug into tiny networks of roots as thin as hairs, though the higher he got the sturdier they became.

He was just a few feet from the top when he realized he could go no further. The angle of the cliff had passed 90 degrees long ago, and Fox was nearly climbing upside down, clinging to the roots for his life. His arms ached and heaved, and his muscles were shaking from exertion. The end was just in sight, within his grasp, but it was still so far away.

Just when he thought his hands would fall off and he himself would plummet hundreds of feet to his death, a fur-covered hand reached down into his view.

Looking up, Fox saw a black-cloaked figure kneeling down at the top of the cliff, offering an open palm to him.

"What are you up to, little one?" Guide's warm voice said. "Hanging around?"

Fox didn't answer or accept his hand. Instead, the young vulpine clung to the cliff face, catching his breath.

"What's the matter, child? Take my hand before you fall."

Fox debated for a moment internally. He had made it this far already, all without Guide's help. He had held his own in Taihō city, stood up for Rem in his time of need, survived days alone in the desert, and even struck a deal that would finally get him out of this world. Morpheus' words also whispered into his ear, reminding Fox of all the doubt that surrounded Somniadux. He would have liked to finish the climb on his own, but...

Giving up, Fox let go of the cliff and grabbed Guide's hand, allowing the towering black figure to pull him up. When the taller vulpine set him down on the soft grass, he was immediately hugged by two jubilant creatures.

"Where were you, Fox?!" Rem cried, burying his head into his friend's side.

"We were so worried about you!" Lucid exclaimed, tightly squeezing the life out of him. "We thought you'd never make it out of the desert!"

"It appears young master Fox can fend for himself when the time comes," Sage commented, patting his back.

When Lucid and Rem finally let go, Fox stepped back and took stock of their party. Everyone was present; the tall, dark figure of Somniadux with his faithful walking stick; Sage with his gray cloak, drooping ears, mangy fur, and crazy eyes; Lucid with her dreamsicle orange pelt and large, alert ears; the short, fat figure of Rem with his teal-green leathery skin; and the complete task force of moles known as the Infranimus Dreamscaping Service, – even poor old Alistair.

Behind the party was a large formation of rock spires and walls that stretched into the horizon as far as the eye could see. A large gray stone archway lead into the rocky maze, with strange fading symbols carved into each brick. Perhaps this was the location Morpheus had spoken of.

Becoming impatient and bouncing on the balls of his feet, Fox asked, "So, the Labyrinth is next, huh?"

Guide cocked his hooded head and stared at Fox, questioningly. "Yes, it is... but where did you hear its name?"

Fox froze awkwardly. He had made a mistake; he couldn't let Guide know of his meeting with Morpheus.

"That is curious," Sage mused, whiskered nose twitching. "But I'd also like to know how you found us here."

Thinking fast, Fox made up a lie. "I would have been lost in that desert forever, if I didn't come across an oasis not too far from here. Someone had drawn a map on one of the rocks and it pointed here, so I followed it. That's all."

Somniadux scratched his chin, thoughtfully, fixing Fox with a piercing gaze. "Well... from now on be careful of following guidance from others; you must only follow those you truly trust with your heart. The advice of strangers is often misleading and ill-intentioned. They will try to lead you down the wrong path of fate, and convince you there are other ways of reaching your destination, when there is only one. Anyone who follows a stranger is liable to become lost..."

"The map got him here, didn't it?" Lucid asked, jumping up and down happily.

Guide let out a sigh. "That it did, child. But come; we dally too long. The white rabbit is once again on the move, and his trail leads directly into the Labyrinth. Be careful; for none who entered the Labyrinth have ever returned."

At this moment, Foreman stepped forwards and removed humbly removed his hard hat. "Er, actually, sir, we 'ave."

"You... you what?" Guide asked in a low voice.

"Just a couple weeks ago, me and me crew got a contract to fix some plumbing in there. Tweren't much, mind you; just fixing some run-offs in the streams after Morpheus flooded the whole bloomin' countryside."

"Yes, but – how'd you get out?"

"Er, I believe we walked sir."

"Of course, but how did you keep your way and not get lost?"

The mole shrugged. "I don't remember it being an issue, sir."

Somniadux rubbed his head with his staff and looked over the workforce of dwarf-sized moles, at a loss.

"We might 'ave lost Alistair in there," Foreman added.

"Right, well, listen up all," Guide said, calling everyone's attention. "That will not be the case this time. The Labyrinth is a large maze that _most _have never made it out of. Sage and myself have only ever ventured into the first layer of passages, and even then we nearly got lost."

"Using the left wall tactic won't work," Sage said, picking up where Guide left off. "For one, there are multiple exits and entrances into the maze, but we have to be sure we find which one the white rabbit used – if he even left the maze at all. For another, the Labyrinth has the uncanny ability to ignore spacial geometry."

"What?" Fox asked, confused.

"Spacial geometry: it doesn't follow it. Oh, you don't know what geometry is, do you?"

After each of the three children simultaneously shook their heads, Oneir tried to explain. "Have you all ever seen the Penrose triangle? Don't know what that is, either, eh? Well, have you ever looked at books of optical illusions? Ah, good. Well, think of it this way. The Labyrinth is a giant optical illusion maze that _isn't _an illusion..."

Sage trailed off, noting their confused expressions.

Guide cleared his throat and continued. "Most importantly, the Labyrinth itself will try to mislead you. From its twisting tunnels to its hundreds of branching passages, it makes even the most experienced traveler all turned-around within ten yards of the entrance. Also, beware of the Labyrinth's temptations; it will try to lead you off the path with false hopes or treasures, all of which are merely bait for traps. Once you stray from the right path, you will never be able to find it again. We must only follow the white rabbit's tracks. Is that clear?"

When everyone in their party nodded, Somniadux smiled. "Good. Now, without wasting any more time, let us be off."

The tall cloaked figure lead the way through the entrance into the Labyrinth, immediately followed by Oneir, the trio of children, and the terraforming moles who brought up the rear.

On either side of the main path, scarred walls of rock rose steeply above their heads, blocking out the sky – though the bright warm rays of the sun still managed to slip between the crags and outcroppings, brightly illuminating the contents of the Labyrinth. Lime green moss had grown over the majority of the canyon floor, covering the ground like a soft, moist carpet. Ferns and large blades of grass sprang up from crevices in the rocks, while multicolored mushrooms hid in the more shaded regions of the valley. Along the cliff faces that hemmed the group in on either side hung long strands of vines, some of which were dotted with bright flowers.

Waterfalls, bubbling streams, and pristine pools intermittently haunted the maze, often filling the air with sprays of mist or covering the floor in shinning puddles. It seemed at one point in time the maze had been inhabited; square-shaped stones could be seen imbedded in the cliff side or sunk in the muddy banks next to pools of water; blocky houses were carved into the rock walls, all of which were abandoned and empty; the remains of stone bridges or dams often spanned the waterways throughout the Labyrinth; and strange symbols and pictures were carved into the majority of the surfaces not overgrown with moss, all of which seemed Incan in design.

And, just as Guide had warned, the stone valley was full of branching passages, caves, and ravines that lead off in every direction. The only thing that kept them on the right path through the endless maze was the footprints of the white rabbit, yet it wasn't long before alternate paths began to tempt them.

After rounding a turn in the valley, the path diverged in two. On the left was the passageway that the rabbit took, but on the right the passage lead to a cave sparkling with... gold.

Immediately, the brownish-yellow light caught the group's eye. Foreman, the leader of the IDS, seemed particularly attracted to the cave of treasure. At the sight of the mountainous piles of gold, his eyes bugged out, and his pupils melted into dollar signs. His jaw slowly fell open, and a drop of drool slipped out onto his overalls.

"Well blow me up and knock me down..." the mole murmured, as if in a dream.

Guide halted and looked back, rolling his eyes when he made the connection between Foreman and the treasure cave. "Give up, man. Once you go in there, you'll never get back out. It's better to be a free peasant than a rich king lost in this accursed maze."

Foreman licked his lips. "Still, that's a large sum of money, that right there. It would be a shame to just leave it here, when I've got such a lonely little bank account back in Icelus begging to be filled..."

Two of his own crew grabbed onto either of his arms and held the possessed mole back. "It's not about the money, Foreman! Remember, it's about the job we love! You're not in it for the money! You love gardening and building!"

"I could have a place of my own if I had that! I'd never have to fix up another man's property again! Unhand me, I say! Mortimer, Winston! Let go!"

"This is an intervention, sir!" the second mole replied, refusing to let him go. The two workers lifted their boss off of his feet and into the air, forcefully removing him from the treasure room and carrying him down the left passageway.

Once the group was a safe distance away from the gold, they took a minute to rest. Guide stepped into the middle of the party and spoke to everyone.

"Good job for avoiding that one... at least most of you," he added, eying Foreman. "The Labyrinth knows our weaknesses. By the end of this journey, I expect it to have tempted each and every one of us. Alone, we are weak, but together, we are strong. If you see someone wandering off after some fantasy, restrain them. Do whatever it takes, but don't let them get lost..."

At this point, Fox wasn't listening anymore. While seated on a crumbling, moss-covered stone bench, the strong smell of food caught his nostril's attention. As he breathed in the pleasant scent, the acids in his stomach suddenly bubbled, and his belly let out a powerful growl worthy of any of Morpheus' monsters. The last thing he had eaten was the foul cafeteria food of Taihō city, which had been three days ago. Even in the oasis, he had only filled his stomach with water, leaving him completely starving and weak without food.

Closing his eyes and sniffing repeatedly, Fox followed the sweet aroma using only his sense of smell. The enticing scent lead between two large boulders to a hollow in the rocks, through which Fox could make out a red-and-white checkered picnic cloth covered in mountains of food; hotdogs smothered in relish and mustard, sizzling hamburgers topped with pickles and cheese, smoking plates of barbeque drowning in sauce, slabs of steak dripping streams of meaty juices to rival the Labyrinth's own waterways, pitchers of lemonade laden with ice cubes and lemon slices, cases of glass root bear bottles covered in condensation, steaming pies freshly taken from the oven...

Without another thought, Fox began squeezing through the gap in the rocks, mouth already watering. But before he could slip through, a paw grabbed onto his sleeve and stopped him. Looking back angrily, he saw Lucid earnestly clinging to his arm, determined to keep him from going any further.

"What are you doing, Fox?" she hissed. "You know not to stray from the path!"

"I'm not straying from the path – it's not even that far! The food's right there!"

"Please, Fox! It's just a little food. You can go without it!"

"I haven't eaten in three days! _Three days!_"

"If you go in there, who knows what might happen!" Lucid persisted. "These rocks would probably close us off! You're only just able to get through them as it is!"

"That's just a chance I'll have to take!" Fox stated, finally breaking free from girl and slipping further between the rocks.

"Please don't go, Fox!" Lucid begged. Then, getting an idea, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a tan-colored lump. "Look, I have food! I can share my rations with you!"

Fox halted in his tracks, halfway between the pain path and the picnic hollow. He glanced back and forth between the hard-tack biscuit Lucid offered with pleading eyes and the seven course meal that awaited him on the other side of the gap.

Finally, he summoned the strength to turn away from the piles of food and slip back the way he had come. He gratefully took the biscuit from Lucid, hastily devouring it within seconds. It wasn't much more than stale bread – it tasted and felt like rotting wood, in fact. Still, the biscuit did its job and managed to fill his aching stomach.

Wiping his mouth with his sleeve, Fox said, "Hey, thanks Lucid... for keeping me from going back there. I would have gotten lost without you, I guess."

"Aw, don't mention it, Fox," Lucid as she swayed back and forth on her feet. "Just do the same thing for me if I ever get tempted away. You know, what the moles did; an indenation."

"Uh, an _intervention?_ Sure. You can count on it."

In the time it took for these events to transpire, Guide had finally finished giving his speech, and once again turned around to lead the way through the Labyrinth.

It wasn't much longer until the group came across a gaping hole in the Labyrinth's floor. It stared up into the air like a large black eye, and must have been ten meters in length across. There was no sign of the bottom, as the hole was increasingly consumed in shadow the further down it went.

Curiously, the group gathered around the lid of the opening and stared down into its depths, wondering how far down it went.

"My friends," Guide announced, sweeping his arms around the gathering, "May I introduce you to Infranimus' one and only bottomless pit!"

"D-does it really go down f-forever?" Rem stammered, kneeling at the hole's side.

"What do you think? It's called the bottomless pit. I had heard travelers speak of it before, but I dismissed it as mere rumors. None of them had actually seen it, of course, but you – gentlemen and young masters – have now had that honor."

Picking up a small rock, Fox tossed it into the pit and listened as it clacked against the stone walls until it disappeared into the darkness. As one, the three children whistled in awe.

"Can I have some of it?" the blind and mostly deaf mole Alistair asked.

Guide looked at him, a confused expression covering his face. "What?"

"The banana split," Alistair explained. "You said there's a banana split in front of us."

Somniadux smacked his face with his palm. "No, I said 'bottomless pit'!"

"Oh, baked chicken grits? Can I have one?"

"Bottomless pit! _Bottomless pit!_"

"Barbeque spit? Let me at it!"

"Will somebody stop Alistair before he..."

All eyes watched helplessly as the unfortunate mole took a blind step forward and tumbled with flailing arms and legs into the pit. Following his plunge, the moles stamped their feet angrily, muttered words of disappointment, and shook their heads disapprovingly.

"Well, I should have expected that by now," Guide admitted. "Anyway, let us not tally here. I'm sure he'll stumble upon a way out, bottomless pit or no bottomless pit. The white rabbit waits for no man; we must hurry."

* * *

><p>The next challenge that presented itself to the group was a large creek that filled up the entirety of their path, stretching from wall to wall. The rabbit's tracks led directly into it, however, so they had no other choice but to follow.<p>

One by one, the members of the party waded into the cold yet gentle creek, sending ripples of light across its smooth surface. While the water only came up to the knees of Guide and Oneir, the three children and the moles were submerged up to their waists.

"Keep a look out below the water," Somniadux advised. "Some areas are deeper that others, so if you stick to the right paths and banks, you won't get anymore wet than you already are. And someone tell Alistair for God's sake not to drown again – oh... he's already gone. Well... watch where you step..."

Suddenly, Rem let out a cry of fear and frantically splashed backwards through the water.

Arriving at his side, Fox asked, "Rem, what'sa matter?"

Pointing with a trembling finger beneath the surface, Rem explained, "Th-there's st-st-stuff below the w-water!"

"Stuff?" Lucid asked. "Like what?"

"J-just look!"

With some effort and a little amount of time, Fox forced his eyes to look at the clouded green water underneath the bright surface reflection of the clifftops. What eventually met his eyes was an array of aquatic life – none of which looked too welcoming. Giant catfish with trailing whiskers and large, gaping mouths floated underneath the current, curiously drifting closer to the children. Huge crayfish and other crustaceans poked their swaying antennae, snapping claws, and wriggling legs out of gaps in the rocks and clumps of roots and algae. And, what the group had once mistaken for large rocks, began to move about lazily, sprouting scaled arms, legs, and heads, until the full forms of snapping turtles were visible.

"I can't go through that!" Rem exclaimed, backpedaling further. "Those things will eat me alive!"

Looking back over his shoulder from the front of the party, Guide called, "Come on you three; we don't have all day!"

"They can't eat you, Rem!" Fox tried to encourage his friend. "They might bite your ankle a little, or snap at you feet, or just feel weird..." the more Fox thought about it and stared at the aquatic creatures swimming beneath the water, the more uneasy and scared he himself became.

"Yeah!" Lucid agreed, picking up Fox's slack. "They're too small to do any real harm! It may be unpleasant, but you can get through it."

"No-no-no-no!" Rem exclaimed. "I can't go. There must be another way!" The amphibian's bulging eyes searched around frantically for any mode of escape from the creek bed. Suddenly, his eyes fixated on a series of round holes in the cliff wall that lead away from the stream. "There! I can go through there!" And he immediately scrambled off after the alternate path.

"No, Rem! You've gotta face your fears!" Fox and Lucid grabbed onto his shoulders and held him back.

"Everyone else made it passed them; so why can't you!"

"But we're just kids! They'll eat us alive!"

"Push through it, Rem! Just don't look down at them and you'll be fine!"

"Come on; we'll do it with you," Lucid insisted.

Grabbing onto either of the frog's slimy arms, they pulled him away from the dry paths leading away from the creek. Closing his eyes, Rem gingerly stepped forwards, bracing himself for the inevitable brush with the aquatic creatures.

Fox, meanwhile, followed his own advice and oh my god that is a giant freaking spider looked anywhere else besides the water teaming with unnerving creatures. At first they walked with Rem at a slow, careful pace; but, as Fox and Lucid brushed against more and more scaly wildlife, they picked up the pace until they were running as fast as they could through the teal-green water.

By the time they caught up with the rest of the party and reached shallow water, the three children were completely soaked and dripping with water.

Shaking herself dry, Lucid said, "See? That wasn't so bad. No incidents at all."

Looking down at his feet, Fox suddenly noticed a crawdad that had latched onto his foot. Screaming like a little girl, he yanked the crustacean off by the tail and flung it back the way they had come, only for it to be swallowed whole by a catfish that poked its head above water.

Rubbing his wounded foot, Fox said to Guide, "You didn't have to wait up for us."

"Actually, we had a bit of a holdup ourselves," the leader of the group explained. Pointing with his wooden staff, he gestured towards three different passages filled with carpets of water that opened up in front of them. "We have no way to know which one the white rabbit took," he went on. "And we can't split up and explore each one, or we'll lose each other."

"Then what are we going to do?" Rem asked.

"We are going to wait here and look for any sign of rabbit in the nearby area," Sage answered. "Keep your eyes peeled; he may have left some tracks above water, say, on a rock or a pebble bank."

The members of the party spread out and searched the nearby area for the tell-tale white powdery footprints, but with no success. Fox himself awkwardly looked for the prints, but his heart was only half in it; he had doubts about the whole idea. Then, down the middle valley, he noticed a small black lump emerge from behind a rock.

Squinting, Fox was able to make out the head of Morpheus' own black rabbit, along with its floppy pair of ears dripping with black goo. Its whiskered nose wiggled for a moment, as if it were testing the air; then, it turned around and displayed its cotton-ball tail before hopping off down the passageway.

Once again, Fox was forced to make a crucial decision. At the moment, it seemed like the golden opportunity to carry out his own plan; all he had to do was lead Guide down the path the rabbit took, and Morpheus would take care of the rest. Then, the odd scientist would show him the way out of Infranimus, and he would wake up again... or come back to life? Fox's head became filled with hordes of nagging questions. Was he really dead, and trapped in some afterlife, or was he merely sleeping? Was Somniadux really as miscreant as the scientist made him out to be? And, most important of all, would Morpheus uphold his end of the deal?

_They're not real, _Fox thought, repeating his newly adopted mantra. Whatever he did in Infranimus was of no consequence to anyone at all; no one would blame him for taking advantage of and betraying imaginary figures that only existed within his own subconscious.

And with that last thought, Fox made up his mind.

Turning around to face the others, he jumped up and down and waved his arms. "The white rabbit! I see it!"

"Eh? Where?" Sage asked, peering through squinty eyes down the three passages.

"Where do you see it?" Guide said, stepping over to Fox and placing his hands on the vulpine's shoulders.

Pointing down the middle path, Fox said, "It took that one! I just saw it jump behind a rock."

"I don't see anything," Sage muttered, frustrated.

Stepping away from Guide, Fox ran ahead of the group, splashing through the shallow creek bed. "Come on! I'll lead the way! It's just around the corner!"

As Fox dashed down the center branch of the stream, the rest of the party was forced to chase after him. The moles made a humorous sight, slipping and tumbling over one another to keep pace with Fox, while Guide, Oneir, Lucid, and Rem trailed immediately behind him.

Morpheus' rabbit handled the group expertly; it traversed the Labyrinth at just the right pace to always stay within seeing distance of Fox while always remaining invisible to anyone else – not too fast, and not too slow. Yet all the while, Fox felt an uneasy feeling in his stomach, and kept second-guessing himself through the entire length of the chase.

* * *

><p>The party spent the last remaining rays of daylight chasing after creature, but they never could catch up to it. As night fell and Fox could no longer see the black hare, Sage advised they find a place to sleep for the night.<p>

Pressing on a little further, they came across a large, open gorge in the Labyrinth, at the center of which were the ruins of a cathedral or some similar building. Its domed roof was partially caved in, allowing the silver light from the moon to pour in and spread across the floor. The moles were quick to setup several campfires, which were used to cook what little of their provisions could be cooked, while the rest of their food was consumed cold.

After their meal, the members of the party all curled up inside sleeping bags and blankets to get a good night's sleep after a long day of hiking. Fox was the first to drift off...

* * *

><p>In the dead of the night, Fox awoke with a start. A large weight was sitting on his chest, effectively pinning him to ground. The object had forced all the air out of him, and Fox didn't have the strength to inflate his lungs under the pressure. He tried to call out to Guide or Sage, but he could summon no breath to his lips. He was entirely at the mercy of the creature upon his chest.<p>

At first he thought it was one of Morpheus' own foul experiments, but, as his eyes adjusted to the dark, Fox saw that he was wrong. A large arctic wolf lay curled up on his stomach merely feigning sleep; its eyes were open and carefully searching the darkness around Fox, reflecting the wavering orange light of the campfire in their irises. The white lupine's tail flicked back and forth attentively, almost like a cat's.

Initially, Fox felt fear begin to overtake him, and his heart began to beat at lightning fast rates. But, as the wolf fixed its glowing eyes on Fox, the fear began to subside. It was like having a dangerous animal or monster watching out for him, with only the best of intentions in mind. The sickness of fear began to slip away, leaving Fox with a sense of safety and surrogate protection.

After trading glances with Fox, the wolf on his chest turned to stare into the unknown blackness once again, searching. It seemed to be protecting him from something, but what...

Suddenly, its eyes became fixated on something, and the beast curled its lip in a growl. Holding his breath, Fox looked into the darkness as well, only to freeze in terror as a pair of red, sinister-looking eyes materialized.

With a swift movement, the arctic wolf leapt off of Fox's chest and bolted into the shadows beyond the campfire where it ferociously attacked the newcomer.

Rolling over on his side, Fox peered into the darkness to watch the two beasts battle, only catching brief flashes of teeth, claws, and eyes locked in a frenzied tornado.

Before he could cry out to the others, a series of rope nets suddenly fell from above and entangled the members of the party, rudely waking them from their sleep.

As Oneir was hoisted into the air by his net, he wildly flailed his arms and legs about, shouting, "I say, what's the big idea! Disturbing an old man during his beauty sleep!"

The moles were all entangled as well, and were lifted into the air after Sage. Fox quickly locked eyes with Lucid, only for her to be ensnared a second later and slowly raised up towards the top of the dome.

"Foooox!" the young vulpine cried as she struggled against the tightly woven ropes.

"Lucid! What... what's happening?"

A raspy laugh echoed throughout the ruins of the cathedral, followed by a blaze of orange light. The tall figure of Morpheus stood at the top of the broken dome, holding a blazing lantern in one hand and a struggling Lucid in the other. "Good, good, Fox; you've been quite a helpful hand."

Behind the plague mask-covered figure loomed Morpheus' mobile castle, positioned directly above the cathedral; an array of pulleys, ropes, and nets hanging from its underbelly.

"Hey!" Fox exclaimed, angrily clenching his fists and glaring up at the scientist. "You were only supposed to take Guide! You didn't say anything about them!"

"Well, well, I guess they're just an added bonus, then..."

Morpheus trailed off as Rem suddenly broke free from his net and fell to ground, scrambling to run away.

"Terrible, terrible; don't let the little runt get away!" the mad scientist shouted as he pointed towards the escaping frog. In response to his command, the mobile castle released a cloud of steam and shifted on its legs, firing another net at Rem. But the young frog avoided it, and managed to slip away into the darkness outside the cathedral.

"Dammit, dammit!" Morpheus cursed, stamping his foot on the ground like a spoiled brat. "I almost had him! Well, it would be boring if something didn't go wrong."

"Fox! Help me!" Lucid screamed once again, swinging back and forth in her net.

At the sign of her struggling, Morpheus shook her bundled net violently to quiet her down. "Now now, no struggling from you! After all, it won't do you any good; young Fox here is on _my_ side!"

"Fox, what's he saying!?" Lucid screamed, clutching the braids of the net like prison bars.

With confused thoughts swirling in his head, Fox looked down for a moment, hiding his face. Then, after looking back up, he replied, "Morpheus is right. He said if I turned Guide in to him, he would help me escape this place."

"Wha... what?" Lucid asked, stammering.

"You're not real," Fox concluded.

Lucid's eyes welled up with tears before her body fell limp and began to shake with silent sobs. "Why Fox... why..."

"I'm sorry, Lucid," Fox continued, heart wrenched at the sight of his friend in tears, "I can't save you every time; it's... it's just too much. I've got to leave here, or I'll go insane." Setting his heart in stone, Fox turned to face Morpheus while mentally blocking out Lucid's display of grief. "Alright. I did what you said; I lead Guide to you. But you said you weren't going to kill him, right?"

"Indeed, indeed – but the jokes on you. Look:"

Morpheus raised his lantern above his head, illuminating the shadows behind Fox. Turning around, the vulpine saw a bundle of nets and fur on the moss-covered stone ground. The nets were pulled away, revealing two wolves – one white, and one black. They lay in a tangled heap on the ground, their fur stained with red stripes and gashes. The white one was the same wolf that had guarded him that night and sprang into the darkness at the first sight of danger, while the black one was the same monster that had chased them through the stone quarry outside Icelus City, and had haunted the streets the night before the summer festival.

"What... I-I don't understand," Fox stammered.

"Understandable, understandable," Morpheus repeated, adjusting his bird mask. "But study the white one's face more closely, child."

Fearfully, Fox stepped over to the shredded carcasses of the two wolves and peered at the facial structure of the arctic one. When he finally realized who it was, he stumbled back and let out a gasp. He had only ever seen Guide's face once – even though it was mostly hidden that time as well – but it was enough for him to recognize the identity of the arctic wolf.

Falling to his knees at the side of the white lupine, Fox laid a hand on its side and murmured, "Guide... are you alright? Guide? Wake up!"

"Heh heh," Morpheus chuckled. "It seems the old goat has done the dirty work for me and killed himself. Pity that I couldn't do the job myself, but that's the way it goes."

With tear-stained eyes, Fox looked up at the flickering orange figure of Morpheus. "Can you... can you hurry up please?" he begged the cackling scientist. "I just want to get out of here. There's nothing left for me here; I just want to wake up!"

"Right, right, I did promise you that, didn't I..." Morpheus trailed off, scratching his chin thoughtfully. "Let's see, let's see... if I recall correctly, my part of the bargain was to bring you back to reality, was it not?"

When Fox nodded, he continued. "Well that should be easy enough. The reality of the situation is... you just betrayed the entire lot of your imaginary friends and family. How's that for a wake up call?"

"What? B-but you meant you'd wake me up to the real world – "

"I meant nothing of the sort!" Morpheus stated, pouting obstinately. "Besides, I'm not sure I could wake you up if I tried. Sure, there's a doorway back in my castle that leads to the real world – but you didn't enter here physically, did you? Only yourmind is trapped here. If you walked out that door, there'd be two of you running around in the Lylat System... and we can't have that now, can we?"

"But you promised!" Fox sobbed, angrily.

"Promised, shmomised. If I recall correctly, you had no problem with betraying your friends for your own personal gain."

"But you said they're not real!" Fox shouted. "_I'm_ real!"

"Ah, ah! A true philosopher asks the question, "Is anything actually real?" Who can tell. So, for now, I must wish you..." The scientist paused to reach into his lab coat and produce a thin glass vial filled with pink liquid. "...Goodnight."

Morpheus lobbed the vial at Fox, and it shattered upon the ground, emitting a sparkling cloud of mist into the air. Without thinking, the young vulpine took a surprised breath, and he was suddenly overcome with the strong urge to lie down... and sleep...

* * *

><p><strong> AN: Alright, I admit I'm getting rather bored of _Dream's Brink_, but as of now there are only three chapters left in the story, so it won't be that hard or strenuous to finish it. However, the next episode of the Hunting Party will come before I update this again, and boy will it have some long-awaited reveals.**


	12. Melancholy Bay

**Chapter 12: Melancholy Bay**

**Or,**

**The Prison of Tears**

* * *

><p><em>"Memorial" - Bring Me the Horizon<em>

* * *

><p>"<em>All<em>

_ good things_

_ come to an end sometime,_

_ Fox," Vixy's cooing voice echoed around the enclosure. _

_"Sometimes the end may come sooner than we expect... or want."_

_ The walls of the room dissolved and splintered into oblivion, leaving Fox open and vulnerable to the _

_elements. __A dark, barren wasteland greeted him on all sides; the red light he had seen through the thick walls was now the dying sun _

_of an already dead world. __Fox fell to his hands and knees and dug at the black, stone ground, clawing away at the shale until he dug deep __into the earth_

_ and curled up there, creating a new pulsating beat with his own heart. __"But I don't want you to go, mother... I don't want you to go, or father..._

_I don't want to go! I don't want to be left alone!" __He tried to cope with the loss of the safe room by _

_leeching off what warmth he could from the cold, unmoving rocks;_

_ but the life that nurtured him was gone._

_"I miss you so much, mom..._

_I miss you __so _

_much."_

* * *

><p>Fox didn't know how long it had been since he first awoke, nor how long it had been since he started crying. The two beginnings possibly coincided, but it didn't matter.<p>

The small child sat in the depression of a large seashell, his torrential tears soaking his clothes and flowing over the surface of the shell until they ascended into the air like waterfalls moving in reverse, or billowing arcs of fountains spraying into the sky above him. The effect of the impossible fountain was a fluid cage of water; he was trapped inside by walls of liquid and foam that kept him enclosed with their powerful jets of water. Beyond the flowing arcs were the dim, blue hues of the morning twilight, but anything else was rarely visible between the towering jets. Nothing else outside mattered; it was just Fox and his prison.

Left to his thoughts, Fox was consumed by his own regret; regret for betraying Guide to his death, regret for ever doubting his ebenezer, his firm rock in the always-changing, ephemeral world of Infranimus. Silent except for his wailing sobs, Fox cursed himself over and over again for his selfish actions.

Curling up into a fetal position and falling over into his own pool of tears, Fox remembered all the selfless acts of kindness the hooded shepherd had shown him. Guide had taken him under his wing when he was first lost in Infranimus and wounded from the initial fall he took. He had continually protected Fox from monster after monster, even at the risk of his own life, and he had even gone off to put a stop to Morpheus' evil machinations, for Fox's benefit and the benefit of all of Infranimus. And after all that, how did Fox repay him?

Rocking back and forth in the salty, bitter pool, Fox recounted all of his whining, his hateful shouting, and finally, the knife he stabbed Guide in the back with. The weight of it all, the weight of having Guide's death on his hands, crushed in on Fox's shoulders, pinning him into immobilization. He was trapped under his sorrow like an insect under a rock, powerless to do anything, much less escape.

_Fox..._

The vupline's ears perked up at the sound of his name, but it had only been his imagination.

"Fox!"

It hadn't.

Webbed, teal-colored fingers grasped the edge of the shell, and the blubbery figure of Rem pulled himself into view. Huffing from exertion, the amphibian attempted to approach Fox, but was blown back by the cascades of water pouring into the sky. Pounding against the sides of Fox's watery prison, Rem yelled, "Fox! You have to get out of there!"

Unsuccessfully trying to dry his eyes, Fox sat up and stared through the transparent walls at his friend. "Rem? What are you doing here?" he sniffed.

"Morpheus caught everyone else, but he didn't catch me!" the young frog said, hopping up and down. "He took everyone and locked them in these weird cells, but I've come to break you out!"

"Good luck with that," Fox said dourly as his head sunk to his chest.

"Come on, Fox! I can't do this on my own! Only _you _can free yourself!"

"What... what do you mean?"

"It's your tears!" Rem exclaimed, urgently. "Your crying is what makes the prison! You just have to stop being sad, and you can get out!"

In response, Fox buried his head in his hands and moaned, "Don't you understand, Rem? I have to be sad! I deserve this; it's my punishment for betraying Guide... for betraying everyone."

"Just listen, Fox!" Rem persisted, clutching unsuccessfully at the fluid prison bars. "I'm all alone out here! Sage and Lucid are locked up somewhere, just like you, and we have to rescue them!"

"_Then _what would we do?" Fox asked, pitifully. "Where would we go without Guide? He's the only one who can fight Morpheus, the only one who can lead us safely through this place, the only one who can break us out... and he's dead! I killed him!"

"Guide can't get you out; only _you _can! You're the one who's making the prison! Just... just stop crying, and you'll be free!"

"But... but I've been so mean and uncaring to all of you. I ruined our adventure, I split apart our group and made everything go wrong... I'm so sorry, Rem. You could never take me back."

"Of course I could!" Rem shouted, beating at the wall of water. "That's what friends are for, right? The truth is... I've never had a friend like you, Fox. You've seen them; everyone else always mocks me and teases me... but you didn't! You never did any of that! In fact, you stood up for me, even though you were exiled for it! Can't you see, Fox, that I've never had a real friend before? That I don't care about what you've done?"

Fox once again attempted to wipe the tears from his face. "You... you really mean that, Rem?"

Rem nodded vigorously. "Honest, Fox! I want you to be my friend... forever!"

Though Fox was still crying, a smile broke through on his face. The frog's words had penetrated the walls of his cell and cut through all the way to his heart. He grinned even wider, and suddenly let out a short giggle. When Rem smiled back, Fox burst out in joyous laughter, and for the first time all day, the tears stopped pouring down his face. Gradually, the pool of tears that filled the basin of the shell evaporated, and the fountains of water that caged him in dissipated on the early morning breeze.

Scrambling out of the dry shell, Fox jumped into Rem, tightly hugging him and burying his head in his thick shoulder, all the time laughing with glee. The two boys staggered backwards and fell off the lip of the large shell, landing and tumbling in the soft sand beneath. When they were done playing, Fox stood up and dusted the grainy sand from his ragged clothes, taking a moment to look around.

The shell he had been trapped in was half buried in a bank of grayish-white sand. Surrounding the sandy bank on most sides was a mirror-like body of water, the pristine surface of which reflected the light blue of the early morning sky. The sea gently lapped against the pale beach, sending naught but faint ripples across its smooth surface. The sand bar upon which they stood was only a small part in a maze of other banks and bridges of sand, some of which dipped below the surface of the calm water.

"Where... are we?"

"Melancholy Bay," Rem answered, following Fox's gaze. "Because, well... it looks so sad."

Fox agreed; the pale colors and quiet ocean made for a somber spectacle.

Turning to Rem, he asked, "You said Lucid and Sage are here, too?"

His friend nodded. "I saw Lucid a little while ago, trapped just like you were. I tried to break her out, but... she wouldn't listen. I guess Sage is trapped somewhere as well, but I didn't run into him."

"And the moles?" Fox added.

Rem shrugged.

"Alright... take me to Lucid. Maybe _I'll_ have better luck with busting her out. Then we'll go looking for Sage, who seems like he knows as much as Guide does... _did_..."

"Sounds like a plan," Rem agreed. "Follow me! Be careful; it's easy to get lost on these sand bars. You might hit a dead end and have to turn around. The water is also deeper at some areas, so watch out; you might drown if you accidentally step into one..."

* * *

><p>The two travelers set off alone on their new quest, the only remnant of what used to be their large party. Rem lead the way across the sand banks, with Fox following close behind. Occasionally they would have to wade through the shallows when they met a dead end, but Rem proved to be an excellent waterman, even for someone of his age, and never lead Fox over a drop off.<p>

After rounding an outcropping of rocks that jutted out of the sand, Rem stopped and pointed, indicating a large clam shell spraying fountains of water into the air, identical to Fox's prison.

"She's in there," he explained. "Like I said, I tried to get her out... but she just wouldn't listen to me."

"I guess I'll just have to try," Fox replied. Turning to Rem, he suggested, "Maybe you should wait back here. It... it might help if I speak to her alone."

Patting the vulpine on the back, Rem said, "Alright, I understand. Good luck... friend."

Fox smiled and nodded at Rem before setting off towards the aquatic prison. Stopping at the side of the shell, he took a deep breath. "Well, here goes."

He jumped, grabbing onto the shell's edge and pulling himself up with much difficulty. Breathing heavily from the exertion, he took a moment to wave back to Rem before turning to face the wall of foaming jets.

Between the rising columns of water Fox was able to catch quick glimpses of Lucid. The orange-colored fox sat miserably in the shallow pool of water, her legs tucked close against her chest and her head buried in her knees. The young girl was crying profusely, and, just as in Fox's case, her tears were her own downfall; they collected in the hollow basin of the shell before rushing out to the walls and shooting up in the air, creating an impenetrable barrier of flowing water. Gingerly, Fox reached out a shaking hand and tried to push it through the wall of fountains, but the water was spraying so fast that the liquid drops stung his hand like miniature bullets. He cried out from the pain and quickly drew his hand back. It looked like there would be no doing this on his own.

Cupping his hands over his mouth, Fox shouted, "Lucid!"

The small fox's head snapped up, baring her tear-filled face as she searched around the walls of her prison. Eyes alighting on her fellow vulpine, she weakly mouthed, _Fox?_

"Lucid, it's me!" Fox shouted. "I've come to get you out of here!"

She stared at Fox through red, puffy eyes, then lowered her head once again.

"Go away."

Fox opened his mouth to speak, but he froze with his jaw dropped. _Go away?_

"What... what do you mean? I-I've come to rescue you!"

"But you can't, can you?"

As Fox once again tried to press in on the prison walls, Lucid continued. "Rem was here. He tried it, but he couldn't break through. I saw him fail."

Furiously fighting against the wall of water, Fox growled, "But he showed _me_ the way out! All you have to do is stop crying! You've got to smile, and laugh! It all depends on you. You're just locking yourself in this way."

Curling up tightly into her protective ball, Lucid sobbed, "I knew you couldn't do it."

Giving up on breaking through the wall, Fox tried a different tactic. Making an outrageously goofy face with a little help from his hands, he said, "Hey Lucid; look!"

The orange vulpine raised her head to look at Fox, but as soon as she laid eyes on his ridiculous face, she buried her head in her knees and turned her back on him. "No! Stop it, Fox! This isn't funny! This is _serious! _How can you make this a joke!?"

"Aw, come on Lucid!" Fox begged, continuing to make funny faces at her. When he realized his comical efforts were falling on closed eyes, he resorted to making crude raspberries with tongue, each one louder than the first.

"Fox, just STOP IT!" Lucid screamed, shaking with sobs.

Fox froze with his tongue between his scrunched lips, awkwardly looking at the vixen's soaked back.

"You're just making fun of me, aren't you!" Lucid accused. "It's all your fault that I'm trapped here, and you're gloating over me! You may have saved me when we first met... but after that you always backed down! You didn't save me from those men in that nasty city, and you didn't save me from Morpheus before he took us away! You just lost interest in me, is that it!? When it got too hard for you, you gave up on me, like you didn't care!"

Fox opened his mouth to defend himself, but he paused, pensively. He could argue his case, explaining that he was completely powerless in both situations... but it wouldn't make Lucid any happier, and that was all that mattered at this point.

Taking a deep breath, he answered, "You're right, Lucid."

The vixen's large ears perked up, and she turned her head to face Fox over her shoulder. "Huh?"

Falling to his knees, Fox added, "I'm really sorry I didn't save you those times; I should have tried harder... I should have tried my best! I know I could have been stronger, and braver, and more courageous... but I wasn't. I was scared and powerless, and I let my fear get the better of me."

Standing back up, Fox pressed his paw into the flowing jet stream once again. "But I'm not gonna let that stop me now!"

"F-Fox, what are you doing?" Lucid sniffed.

Gritting his teeth and throwing his shoulder against the wall, Fox forced his small hand through the powerful fountains and offered it to Lucid. "Here; take my hand! Together we can get out of this!"

"Fox, don't do this!" Lucid screamed, scared. "You're hurting yourself!"

But Fox pressed on through the stream until his head broke through the water, the fountains drumming against his weak chest. "Come on Lucid! Reach! I can't do this alone! We can break out of here together! Now come on!"

Lucid began wiping her eyes with her sleeves, and her sobs subsided into light sniffles. "Fox... you'd do this for me?"

"Of course I would! I'll never leave you hanging again, Lucid! As long as I live!"

When Lucid removed her arms from her face, she was smiling. "Thank you, Fox," she beamed at him.

The vixen accepted his hand, and Fox yanked her out of the liquid cell, breaking whatever spell was cast upon the prison and putting an end to the streams of water. Once Lucid was outside, she threw her arms around Fox and embraced him tightly. "You'll... you'll save me, forever?"

"Forever," Fox assured her, returning the embrace.

"Yay! You got Lucid out!"

The pair of foxes blushed and hurriedly extricated themselves from each others arms. They turned to find Rem waiting for them below the lip of the shell, a stupid grin on his face.

Catching a hold of Rem by the ear, Sage emerged from behind the shell. "Now now, Rem; let the two foxes share their moment. It's not polite popping in unexpectedly like that; learn to respect people's privacy."

Standing on his tiptoes and tilting his head towards Sage's iron grip, Rem cried, "Oooh! Ow-ow-ow! Okay, I'm sorry Fox and Lucid! I was just so happy that both of you are free now!"

Releasing his hold on Rem's ear, the old hare straightened his robe and removed his hood, revealing his mangy gray fur and drooping ears. "That's more like it... young whipper snapper," the rabbit muttered. Raising his voice again, he addressed the rest of their small group. "You have no idea how happy I am to have found you all; I thought everyone was lost forever! Imagine my good fortune to stumble upon you all here!"

"Now we have to look for the moles, right?" Rem asked, rubbing his ear.

"What... what about Guide?" Fox spoke up.

Oneir froze. "Erm... what about him?"

Fox looked down and began rubbing his foot in the sand. "Aren't we going to look for him?"

Sage's face took on a dour expression, and he sighed. Kneeling down beside Fox, he placed a hand on his shoulder, comfortingly. "Look, son... I don't know how to tell you this, but... Guide's dead."

Fox choked. "You mean he's... he's really dead, then?"

The hare nodded, somberly.

"But there's still a chance we can find him!" Fox exclaimed, suddenly becoming animated again. "He told me of this place called Agartha! It's-it's this place at the end of the world, where the sun always shines! And-and he said he would take me there, so I could come back to life, and so we could see the sun again! I bet he's there right now; I bet we could bring him back to life if we went there!"

"Fox... there are some things you just have to accept. You can't bring Guide back. He's dead. But while we were traveling, he told me he had one wish; he wanted me to take care of you and be your new guide. I... I would never pretend to be as strong, or brave, or as caring as Guide was, but I'll certainly try."

"No!" Fox shouted, batting Oneir's hand from his shoulder and stumbling backwards. "You can never take his place! We have to go find him! I _know _we can bring him back!"

"Stop right there, son," the rabbit ordered as he grabbed a firm hold of Fox's sleeve. "Somniadux gave me very clear instructions. We are not to go after him, and we are not to try and kill Morpheus; it's too dangerous. He just wants you to be safe, do you understand!?"

"But I don't want _you_!" Fox screamed. "I want _him_! I want Guide back! And if you won't take me to him, I'll find my own way!"

Fox wrenched free from Sage, but in the violent process the ornament he had stolen from Morpheus' castle fell out of his pocket and shattered upon the hard, pebbly ground. The azure crystal broke open, and the preserved violet it contained spilled out upon the gray stone shore.

Not giving the trinket another thought, Fox sprinted away from Oneir, searching the distant horizon. In their short conversation Guide had shared with him in the forest, he had explained that the land of Agartha lay on the very western edge of Infranimus. Judging by the faint glow of morning, he estimated the closest direction to west he could and ran off from their group, tears streaming from his face once again.

As his feet sent up splashes of water behind him, he blocked out the warning calls of his friends and continued blindly on... until he found himself up to his neck in water.

Fear and panic gripped Fox's heart as he realized he had stumbled past the ocean's drop-off point, his momentum carrying him farther out until his feet could no longer touch the ground. He struggled to stay above water as he cried desperately for help, but it was no use. As he slipped below the surface of the water, the last sight that greeted him was Sage diving into the ocean after him.

Then... he sank into darkness, and water filled his lungs.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: ****Only two/three more chapters to go, laddies and gents. ****Two more chapters of actual story, including the ending, and a third and final chapter dedicated to explaining the entirety of **_**Dream's Brink**_**; every allusion, metaphor, and easter egg.**

**By the way, ****i****f you hadn't heard or noticed already, Sheppard Studios is hosting a one-shot contest, the last entries of which will be posted b****etween now and**** the 31****st****. ****So check out the four that have already ****been ****published (especially mine, m'kay?) and watch out for more to show up.**


	13. Agartha

**Chapter 13: Agartha**

**Or,**

**Dream's Brink**

* * *

><p><em>"As You Go" - Red<em>

* * *

><p>When the darkness left Fox again, he was all alone. The gray banks of Melancholy Shallows were gone, and his friends with them.<p>

After he found his bearings again, Fox fell to his hands and knees, retching up the suffocating water that filled his lungs. As he did so, a black goo sprayed from his lips, splattering upon the ground and rushing outwards like a wave. At the sight of the ominous fluid, Fox reeled back onto his haunches, desperately spitting the metallic taste from his mouth.

Wiping away every trace of the liquid from his lips, he gazed about him, already fearing what new location surrounded him.

Beneath his feet, the ground was a solid, black rock, nearly as dark as obsidian. The fractured pieces of shale poked and stabbed his bare feet, making the material the last thing Fox would want for a carpet. Above him, the sky was nowhere to be found – not a speck of blue, a hint of a star, nor a trace of the sun. He had given up on the sun long ago.

On his left lay a steep hill of boulders and rocks, the same dark hue and unforgiving texture as the stone beneath his feet. Behind the wall poked the bare, angular branches of dead trees, before the rest of the forest was hidden in mist. On his right...

Fox turned and gasped in awe and horror. The edge of a cliff face greeted him, a razor sharp drop off into nothing. The rocky shale just stopped, a gaping hole in its place. The veritable crater stretched on for miles, and though Fox sensed the slight curve in the cliff side, he could not follow it into the mist clockwise or counter-clockwise, nor could he see the opposite edge in the inky blackness.

Struggling to his feet, Fox realized just how tired and weary he actually was. He had been walking for days and days on end, with only the barest minimum of nourishment to keep him going. His legs shook and spasmed beneath him, while his sore arms groaned in pain while they hung limply at his sides. As the cold air rushed up from the circular pit to blow past him, Fox pulled his arms into his sleeves and wrapped them around his frail chest, trying to contain his own warmth.

Staggering over to the cliff edge, he stared down into the great void. He was greeted with nothing but a sick feeling of vertigo from looking into its never ending depths, so he retreated back away from the edge.

_What is this place?_ he thought.

Wherever he was, he knew he couldn't stay – or at least he didn't want to stay. He still had to find Guide, and he still had to find Agartha... though now his chances of finding either looked extremely grim. Something about the lightless pit carried a certain finality about it – a dream-crushing finality that could turn even the most stubborn of optimists into pessimists.

Fox turned his head in both directions, following the lip of the crater in either direction until it disappeared in the billowing fog.

Left... or right?

The simple question paralyzed Fox like a block of marble, but he knew he had to act; he couldn't last much longer.

In the end, he chose the left, and began to walk.

* * *

><p>Aimlessly, Fox wandered along the cliff edge, his feet dragging against the cruel surface. His legs threatened to give out with every step, and his heart was failing him, but he continued on regardless. He had survived attacks from monsters, falls from high places, drowning, and walking through desert wastelands for days; he wasn't about to give up now. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that this was the final part of his story – that he was approaching the end of the dream, with either life or death awaiting him on the other side. It would be so easy to just give in – to fall on his hands and knees and crawl over the edge, to slip into the black pit and never wake up again. All of his useless wanderings and efforts had come to nothing; he would never find Guide again, he would never make Morpheus pay for what he had done, he would never save Heramor from dying by his poison, he would never find Agartha, he would never wake up to the sun...<p>

And he would never come back to life.

Though he was completely alone at the side of the cliff, haunting voices whispered in his ear, carried on chilling wind rising from the dark hole. They echoed throughout the canyon, barely audible to Fox's ears.

_"__Get up, boy..."_

Fox froze in his steps, looking around anxiously.

"W-who said that?"

The faint whispers continued on, paying him no heed.

_"You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?"_

"What do you mean?" Fox demanded, still searching the landscape for the source of the voice.

_"__Sill__y__ boy... don't you know the answer?"_

The voice was gentler this time; weaker, like a soft cooing. Then, the two voices spoke at once:

_"The season of winter, before spring comes..."_

_ "Some place in between..."_

A sinking feeling gripped Fox's stomach; he finally found the source of the voices. They were rising from the deep hole, the bottom of which he had no hope of seeing.

With his pulse quickening and fear rising, Fox began uneasily creeping along the edge of the crater once again. The voices showed no sign of letting up – in fact, they were joined by a third, elderly one.

_"__We were betrayed... your father is..."_

_ "__We don't know where the sun goes when it's night..."_

_"__You have to learn how so say goodbye."_

Though he couldn't place the voices, something about each one seemed familiar, and their words dripped through the wall of amnesia in his mind as through holes in a dyke. The voices increased their tempo, assuming accusatory tones.

_"__You're not from around here, are you?"_

_ "Tell me, why do you trust him?"_

_ "Is anything actually real?"_

_ "You ask too many questions..."_

Fox gulped, choking back tears as he staggered along the cliff face. Speaking to them proved useless, so he remained silent and listened, afraid of what might come next.

_"You don't always know how the dream ends..."_

_"__Do you __believe me?"_

_**"Sometimes... the end may come sooner than we expect – "**_

* * *

><p>Suddenly, he found him.<p>

Fox came across a dark figure sitting on the very edge of the cliff, a hood pulled over his head and a staff lying uselessly by his side. Like a cloud passing from in front of the sun, or a mist dissipating from a field, the voices vanished, leaving the two figures alone.

Guide sat at the edge of the cliff, his legs and the hem of his cloak dangling freely over the void.

Though he was afraid of the wolf that hid beneath the cloak, Fox felt himself drawn to the familiar creature – his shepherd and his fortress throughout all his time spent in Infranimus.

Fox closed the gap between the two, his legs giving out completely when he reached Guide's side. He followed Somniadux's example and swung his feet out over the edge, letting them hang lazily in the slight breeze. Glancing at Guide's face hidden beneath his hood, Fox followed the direction of his gaze and stared out into the giant gaping hole that loomed before them.

"That's death," Guide stated, matter-of-factly.

Fox struggled to take the sight in. It was hundreds, thousands, if not millions of times bigger than him. Sitting at the edge of the crater, the monstrous hole that loomed before him, he felt utterly powerless. There was nothing he could do. He couldn't walk around it, he couldn't cross over it, he couldn't scale down it and come back out... Fox could only sit and stare at it. He just had to let it _be_.

After Fox didn't answer for several minutes, Somniadux spoke again.

"They... they said you could see the sun here..."

"But you can't," Fox finished after Guide trailed off.

They sat in silence, awfully staring into the dark abyss, a sight as terrible as it was inspiring and consuming.

When neither uttered a world for several minutes, Fox finally worked up the courage to ask his question, the answer of which he feared, possibly greater than anything he had ever feared in his life.

"Is this... Agartha?"

Guide's hood dipped in a nod. "Yes, little one. Agartha, the end of the world... the western edge of Infranimus... the resting place of the dead, and the sun... where I rest with them."

"So you really are dead," Fox whimpered, head sinking.

"Yes, little one. I have gone beyond the edge of Dream's Brink, the divide between dreams and death. There is no getting me back, child."

His words fell on Fox's shoulders like an anvil, and his heart sank beneath the weight.

He sniffed back tears. "I'm sorry, Guide. It was my fault you died. I made that stupid deal with Morpheus that got you killed. I betrayed you!"

"Hush little one; you wrongly blame yourself. My death was no one's fault but my own. It was I who was consumed with thoughts of anger and vengeance, it was I who constantly put you and others at risk, who dragged you along with my own delusions of justice when I had no right two. I didn't die fighting any creature of Morpheus' creation."

Turning to look at Fox, he finished, "I died fighting myself."

Fox felt his head getting light, and he fell against Guide's side, struggling to keep his eyes open.

"Fox... you have to be strong."

"But I can't," Fox sobbed, finally letting his tears take over. "I'm so weak right now, I'm so tired."

"I can't go with you anymore, child. I am no longer one of the living. You'll have to leave me."

"But I can't do this alone!" Fox wailed.

"I didn't say you had to do it alone; you'll just have to move one without me. There will be others to help you. You've met so many new friends along the way; they will help you. They'll take care of you. And before long... perhaps you will even lead them."

"It can't be true! It just can't be!"

Guide smiled, weakly. "Haven't I taught you anything, little one? Haven't you learned _anything_ while here in Infranimus? You can't simply deny death and make it go away. Neither is blind anger the answer, nor any amount of foolish deals, nor consuming sorrow. You just have to accept this Fox, and move on. If you don't, you'll only hurt yourself, and the others around you."

"But I hurt so much already," Fox cried as he buried his head into Guide's familiar cloak and hugged him tightly with his arms.

Guide gently wrapped his arms around Fox in return. "Of course it's going to be painful, Fox. But the pain won't last forever; most wounds always heal, and certainly this one. You have to move on, and grow up."

"But I don't want to," Fox whined as he shook his head futily. "Can't I just stay here with you?"

"No, Fox; neither can I. It is time for me to step beyond Dream's Brink and leave this world, and it is time for _you _to return to the land of the living. I'm afraid this is where we must part."

"Then, can't I just stay here a little longer, with you? Not forever, just... long enough to say goodbye."

"I... I don't see why not."

Guide tightened his arms around Fox, who felt warmly secure in his embrace. He rocked back and forth, setting the vulpine's fears at ease.

Fox wanted their last moment to never end.

* * *

><p>Slowly, Guide loosened his hold on Fox until his loving arms dropped away completely.<p>

"It is time, little one," he whispered in Fox's ear.

"Okay," the vulpine whimpered. He reluctantly let go of Guide and pulled away, drying the tears from his eyes and face. Somehow, he had managed to stop crying during their embrace. Perhaps he was getting stronger, or perhaps he had just cried all he had left to cry.

"But... where will I go without you to lead me? I've only gotten lost on my own."

"Sage will guide you, don't worry. He is quite adept, I assure you. Follow him, and you will never be lost. Now go to him; you will find him in the forest beyond the rocks; he is waiting for you."

Reluctantly, Fox stood up and took several halting steps away from Somniadux and the cliff edge.

He paused. "Goodbye, Guide."

"Goodbye, Fox..."

The young fox turned his back on Dream's Brink and marched away. When he reached a gap in the boulders that provided a path to the dead woods, Fox froze once again. Placing a hand on the rock wall, he slowly looked back over his shoulder.

The bare edge of the cliff was all that greeted him.

* * *

><p>With only the sound of his feet smacking against the hardened shale, Fox slipped between the gap in the boulders and found himself in the withered forest. The trees were the color of charred wood, and their branches created a thick canopy that blotted out the sky – not that there was much to blot out in the first place.<p>

Glancing down at his feet, Fox found a lightly trodden path through the dirt and dead leaves that carpeted the floor; once well-worn, but now nearly covered in debris again.

Setting his feet upon the trail, he followed it through the dark forest, which was silent except for the rustling of what little dried leaves remained fixed to their branches. The carpet of soft leaves, dead moss, and dried grass at his feet crackled as he trod across its surface, a welcome change to the hard stone of the cliff edge.

Eventually he came upon a small clearing in the dead trees. At the center of the hollow was placed a gray stone bench that stood out like a sore thumb amongst the black leaves and trunks. Sitting atop the bench was the bent figure of Sage, ears drooping and staff gripped tightly between his hands.

Upon entering the hollow, Fox stepped on a twig, which snapped and alerted Sage to his attention. The old man turned his head towards Fox and stood up quickly, awkwardly shifting on his feet.

Fox halted in place as Oneir asked, "He's gone... isn't he?"

Fox nodded, quickly.

"Oh... I see." The hare's wild eyes darted around the clearing, glancing anywhere but Fox.

"Look, sonny... I don't mean to take Guide's place or anything of the sort. I... I'll never be as great a man as he was. And if you don't want to follow me... then that's fine with me. I won't even stick around you, even. I'll just leave right – "

"No, that's fine," Fox cut in. "I wouldn't be able to leave here without you. I think you'll make a great guide."

Sage's ears perked up. "You... you really mean that, sonny?"

Fox nodded. "I want you to be my guide."

"Oh, well in that case... follow me."

Jubilantly, the old hare grabbed his walking stick, swung around with a flourish of his cloak, and dove back into the trees, with the vulpine close on his heels.

* * *

><p>Oneir lead Fox deeper into the forest, though the young tod had no idea what he had in mind. Instead of asking how he was to escape Infranimus, he simply followed and trusted in his new found leader. He'd have to get used to it without Guide around.<p>

As they continued on into the woods, Fox's surroundings grew more familiar. More life seemed to flood the trees; the bark became various shades of gray and brown instead of lifeless black, the dead leaves grew vibrant red, and the withering tree roots poked out of the ground and shifted lazily from side to side. Above the canopy of reddish-brown leaves there glinted the lights of stars in the night sky where before there had been none.

Noticing Fox curiously looking around, Sage commented, "You know where we are, don't you?"

"I think... I think these are the woods where I first entered Infranimus. Guide found me just outside here."

"That's right. It's called Dimlight Forest. It must be strange seeing it again."

"Yeah. Come to think of it, I've never visited the same place twice in Infranimus."

"I guess you've come full circle, sonny."

Sage halted. He had found whatever exit he was looking for.

"There," he said, simply pointing.

Fox followed the direction the hare indicated. He was gesturing to a small pond that had formed in a creek bed, into which trickled a small waterfall. Gentle ripples caressed the top of the pool, distorting the branches, leaves, and stars reflected on its surface.

Fox stepped over to the creek bed, taking care the bank didn't crumble beneath his feet and cause him to tumble again. He leaned out over the edge, peering into the small body of water.

"This is it? The way out?" Fox asked.

"That's it."

Fox narrowed his eyes at the pool. "But it doesn't go anywhere; it's only a few feet deep."

"Look harder," Sage suggested.

The leaves rustled overhead, and a renewed breeze swept between the tree trunks.

Returning his gaze to the pool, Fox tried looking deeper, beneath the faint reflections that covered the surface like a film. Obscuring the bottom of the creek was a gently stirring blanket of leaves and muddy clouds. For several minutes, Fox didn't notice anything out of place, but then a slight glimmer of light escaped from the mixture of debris.

"I... I think I saw something. It was a little light..."

The vulpine continued starring into the pool, and was rewarded with the sight of a warm light seeping through the debris. Glowing rays protruded from the water, lighting up the trunks and branches of the forest canopy around them.

"Is that... is that..."

"You've found it, Fox."

"But... how do I get to it? How do I leave?"

"Forgive me, child. Guide would have wanted it this way. I was never one for long goodbyes – "

Before Fox could turn around, Oneir placed his two hands on Fox's back and thrust him forwards, sending him sprawling into the creek. The water splashed up all around him, and he barely had time to catch a breath before he was submerged under the surface. He flailed to find a hand or foothold, anything to grab onto to support himself, but he found nothing. As the brilliant glow at the bottom once again caught his eyes, he oriented himself towards the light.

What did he have to lose? Instead of swimming up and out of the pool, he swam towards the sun.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: The next update will be a double feature, so to speak, as I will be posting the final chapter and the explanation/postscript at the same time. So make sure you don't just skip to the end and read the explication.**

**Also, I've decided to suggest a song at the beginning of each chapter and link to a playlist for **_**Dream's Brink **_**on my profile. No K.S., this isn't to annoy you. ****The songs are completely optional, or course, ****though they are quite useful in setting the atmosphere for the story, and perhaps showing some of my inspiration for the given chapter. ****So, check the playlist on my profile for the ones you missed if you so ch****oose.**


	14. Wake

**Chapter 14: Wake**

* * *

><p>"<em>Ghost" - Hollywood Undead<em>

* * *

><p>"<em>What<em>

_are you_

_waiting for, Fox?" _

_the maternal voice asked him._

_ Fox curled into a ball, tightly clasping __his legs _

_to his chest and clenching his eyes shut. __"What do __you_

_mean?" Fox shot back. "This is the end; there's now way out for me._

_ I can't move, I can't see, I'm lost...there's no way out." __The voice went on,_

_ encouraging him to action. "That's not like you, Fox. Where's your spirit? Where's your life?_

_Since when have you ever given up? You've made it this far; it will only take a little more." __Fox shifted in his_

_underground tomb, and he discovered his limbs were charged with renewed energy. His joints ached and groaned,_

_ and he felt a new desire take hold of him: the desire to break free _–_ the desire for escape. "Tell me, Fox... is this really the end?"_

_ "No... it's not. I... I can see that now. It is only if I let it be." "Then break out Fox, and be reborn." The vulpine stretched his arms and legs,_

_ pushing against the confining egg of rock with all his might. Gritting his teeth, he growled, "I will escape this..." His heels dug into the stone beneath his feet,_

_ crushing it into gravel and giving him leverage. "I will hold on to life..." His back pressed against the ceiling, and his claws dug into the stone, now crumbling like soft earth_

_ against his __pressure. "And I will see the sun again!" With one final push, he broke through the womb of the earth and into the open air, light streaming all around him, and darkness fading away..._

* * *

><p>Brilliant flashes of black and white.<p>

A hand grabbed his, then another.

Water streamed away, and wind blew past.

Quickly but gently, he was laid on the dry ground to face the sky. Two palms pressed against his stomach, shoving down forcefully... once... twice... three times, until his back arched and he spat up creek water. The liquid soon cleared from his eyes, and a canopy of green leaves and branches filled his vision, through the gaps of which he could see the blue sky, and at the center of that...

The sun.

The light was so blinding and painful that he wanted to shut his eyes, but he willed them to stay open and take in every bit of it they could. But before long, a shadow passed between him and the sun, a familiar shadow with two long ears.

"Fox! Are you okay!? Please Fox, say something, _anything_! I can't lose you now!"

Peppy was crying over his limp body, his tears beginning to fall upon his already soaked clothes.

"Not after this... I can't lose you too!"

"Uncle, Peppy?" Fox coughed, retching up more water.

Suddenly throwing his arms around the young tod, Peppy lifted Fox up and held him against his chest, rocking him back and forth. Hurriedly, the old hare began spilling forth words one after the other; "Oh, Fox! You're okay! I was so sure I lost you... and after losing James, I-I felt so guilty! None of this turned out the way I wanted it too, it's worse than I dreaded! I could hardly bear telling you what happened – telling you the truth. It broke my heart telling you about your dad, Fox; to see that sinking look on your face as you realized why I'd come. And then when you ran away, I just... I didn't know how to react. I'm sorry I ever let you go, Fox. I should have given you some time to cope with it, but I had to go and suggest right away – "

"It's alright, uncle Peppy!" Fox stopped him, grabbing onto his arms. "It's alright! Just don't blame yourself for this. I need you now... I need you to take care of me."

Peppy halted, and the tears stopped flowing from his eyes. "You... you what? B-but just a few minutes ago you said you never wanted my help, that you never wanted me to – "

"I'm sorry, Peppy. I didn't mean those things... I shouldn't have said them. Please believe me! I'm sorry for what I said, I was just so surprised that..."

Fox trailed off, and a rush of memories began pouring into his mind like a dam had just released a flood. His entire life spilled to the forefront of his mind, then arranged itself from the first thing he remembered after birth to the moment he stumbled into the creek bed in his neighborhood forest. And at last, the final piece fell into place.

Fox choked. "He's... he's dead..."

Up to that moment, he had been thinking and talking on autopilot, trying to comfort his friend. But now his past finally caught up to him, and all of his time spent in Infranimus was pushed idly to the side.

At this point, his teeth began to chatter, and a slight shiver overtook his body.

Frowning worriedly at Fox, Peppy lifted the soaking wet vulpine in his arms and stood up.

"Come on, Fox; let's get you home. There's... there's some more I have to tell you. Your father was a brave man, Fox. A real brave man... and a leader."

"I know," Fox sobbed, crying into Peppy's shoulder. "I want to be like him... I want to grow up to be just like him..."

Suddenly gripping Peppy's arms, he asked, "Can you teach me?"

The hare looked at Fox with a confused expression. "T-teach you? Teach you what?"

"To be just like him... to fly a ship, to lead a team... to fight Andross... to be a mer... mercenary, and save people..." Fox looked up and met Peppy's eyes. "Will you teach me, Peppy?"

The old rabbit sighed, speechless at the sight of Fox's earnest, tear-filled eyes.

"Of course, Fox. How can I say no?"

* * *

><p>...<p>

* * *

><p>Fox stepped out of the shadow of the aircraft silo and into the sun.<p>

At first he was blinded by the difference in light, so he threw up his arm to shield his eyes. It was times like this that made him understand why his father wore sunglasses.

As his eyes adjusted to the light, he was greeted with the majestic sight of the_ Great Fox. _Its white-washed hull glowed brilliantly against the bright blue sky like a pearl in a tropical sea. What a surprise it had been when Peppy revealed the ship for his sixteenth birthday not much more than a year ago. His jaw had dropped open then, and even after familiarizing himself with it over the year, he still was awestruck every time he laid eyes on the graceful dreadnaught.

Shouldering his flight satchel and adjusting his father's red scarf around his neck, Fox walked across the airfield runway until he came to the _Great Fox's _loading dock. He placed a hand on the raised floor, but before he pulled himself up he took a moment to stroke the hardy metallic surface.

_Thanks dad... I don't know how I'll ever repay you._

After finding a better grip on the raised deck, Fox hoisted himself up and entered the docking bay where four identical blue-and-white ships greeted him: the arwings, newly manufactured with the blessing of Slippy's father.

Fox never thought he'd get this far.

His face soon curled in a miffed frown as the sound of snarky laughter reached his ears, thus ruining his good mood.

Stepping around the nose of left-most arwing, Fox came upon a tall, blue-feathered falcon standing over a much smaller and fatter amphibian. Slippy was laying flat on his back atop a mechanic's creeper, helplessly shoved under the arwing's hull. The avian had his foot firmly planted on the edge of the roller, preventing Slippy from sliding back out.

Shaking with laughter, the falcon teased, "You? _Really? _Fly one of _these _bad-boys? You get airsick just looking out a ground-level window. I bet you don't even have your learner's permit, do you? Besides, a few minutes in the sky with some _real _bogeys, and you'll be pissing your pants!"

"Shut it, Lombardi," Fox ordered.

"Oh, hey McCloud! Get this; this little runt thinks he's gonna fly with us!"

"He is," Fox stated, proudly. "Now let him up, Falco."

Falco's eyes bulged as he looked back and forth between Fox and Slippy.

"_What? _You've got to be kidding – "

When the avian made no effort to let Slippy up, Fox rudely shoved him off and helped the amphibian slip out from under the arwing.

"Of course he is. Why do you think we have four arwings?"

"But we need one for a spare!" Falco countered.

"Then he'll use the spare."

As Slippy stood up, Fox helped him dust off his flight jacket. Then, he turned to Falco and fixed him with a disappointed glare.

"Come on, Lombardi; lay off Slippy already. It's not cool."

"Aw, I was just teasing the little guy – "

"Yeah, well it's not funny. I find it pathetic you have to put Slip down just to make yourself feel like an adequate pilot. Anyone who has to do that to build confidence deserves no place on my team... got it?"

The falcon opened his beak to retort, but then closed it awkwardly and rubbed the back of his head. Storming away he mumbled, "Alright, whatever."

When Falco had disappeared deeper into the _Great Fox, _Fox turned back to Slippy.

"Hey, sorry about Falco. I know he's a new addition to the team, and he might take some getting use to... but he doesn't mean anything by his comments. It's just the way he is. Some people are just born assholes; they can't help it."

"Well... thanks for stepping in, Fox. But I can take care of myself. Don't worry about it."

Fox patted his back. "That's the spirit, Slip. But hey, I'll always be there for you; you may have to get used to that as well."

Fox left Slippy to his work as he made his way towards the bridge of the _Great Fox. _When he entered the flight deck, he found Peppy hard at work plotting their course on the main computer.

Sitting down in the chair next to him, Fox tapped his shoulder and said, "Gimme their last location, Peppy."

The elderly hare leaned forward and squinted at the data on the screen.

"The hijacked transport was last seen leaving Papetoon towards the Meteo belt. According to the ship's calculations, the pirates should've just passed the halfway point."

"Then we'll head 'em off," Fox stated with determination.

Peppy rotated his chair towards the young pilot and placed a cautious hand on his shoulder. "Are you sure about this, Fox? We've never taken on a group this big before."

Fox patted the rabbit's back to reassure him. "Of course we can do this. Besides, Peppy; Fara's on that ship. You wouldn't want me to let her down, would you?"

"Well, you know I'd rather let the CDF handle this one. I've said that from the get go. But if you're this confident, Fox... just know that I'm right behind you."

"I know you are, Pepp..."

After completing the preflight checklist, Fox rested his hands on the main throttle, but paused suddenly, his head sinking down. Looking awkwardly at Peppy, he stumbled.

"Hey, uh, before we take off... I just wanted you to know... I couldn't have gotten here without you. Star Fox wouldn't even be here anymore if it wasn't for your guidance."

Peppy blushed and smiled back. "Well, shucks, Fox... you give me too much credit. You're the one who got Slippy and that Lombardi fellow to join the team; you're the real glue here, not me. I may have helped along the way – I've at least got the experience – but it was you who persevered and fought for this to happen. I was sure Star Fox was gone for good, until you told me you wanted to... to follow your..."

Peppy spun his swivel chair away so Fox couldn't see him cry, but even the vulpine noticed him wiping a tear away with his wrist.

"Well shoot, now I've went and got all emotional on you..."

"That's okay, old-timer. What say we take off now?"

"That's fine by me."

Fox turned away from Peppy and stared out the _Great Fox's _front canopy, scanning the empty cement runway, bright blue sky, and light-soaked clouds.

Activating the ship's comm systems with his left hand, Fox said, "This is it; we're taking off, boys. Better strap in."

He left the comm open, during which a few seconds of static filled the system, until Falco's voice came through.

_"__Hey Foxie, you just worry about your own hide. __I can take care of myself."_

Muting the comms and smiling, Fox commented, "That Lombardi's great, isn't he?"

Peppy crossed his arms. "He's got no respect for his elders, and he's too hot-headed... but he's an ace pilot, I'll give him that."

"He'll learn. Or maybe he won't... I guess he's more fun this way."

Fox pressed the thrusters forward to their maximum extent, and the _Great Fox's _engines roared to life, causing the whole ship to shake. Once they had started, they settled back down to a soft hum and stopped vibrating terribly.

"Wow... listen to that; smooth as a kitten's purr. Dad sure knew how to pick 'em."

"He sure did," Peppy echoed, nodding.

Gradually releasing the brakes, Fox allowed the _Great Fox _to begin inching forward, only at a crawl at first, but then faster and faster, rapidly picking up speed. His eyes were focused on the long runway and the brilliant sky above, but they soon caught a small shape moving alongside the cement road.

Turning to look at the shape, Fox was surprised when he found it was a young kit running through the grass field along the airstrip. The small, furry creature struggled to keep pace as the _Great Fox _picked up speed, every so often lifting into the air for a few seconds before settling back down again. The child seemed to be chasing after the dreadnaught, barely keeping pace as he ran engulfed by the leviathan's shadow which surfed across the grass like a ghost.

The sight struck something deep inside Fox, and he opened his mouth as if it speak. Of course he knew it was pointless, so he slowly closed his jaw again.

_Good luc__k, kid..._

* * *

><p>A half hour later saw the <em>Great Fox <em>escaping Corneria's atmosphere and gravitational pull. Once the dreadnaught settled into a smooth cruising speed and the autopilot took over, Peppy removed his headset. He stood up and stretched, his aged back snapping and cracking as he did so.

"Oooh... alright, Fox; I'll be going to the rec room for a warm mug of tea. It always helps me reign in my nerves before missions. Wanna come along?"

"No thanks, Pepp. I think I'll catch some shut eye. I couldn't sleep last night."

"Okay, Fox. I'll be sure to wake you before we intercept the pirates. It'll be several hours, so you have plenty of time for a nap. See you in a few."

"You too, Peppy."

As the hare left the room, Fox rubbed his aching eyes. Leaning back in his chair, he lifted his boots onto the dashboard and crossed his arms behind his back. He stared out at the stars for a few minutes before his sore eyes began to list shut.

The last thing he saw before he fell asleep was stars.

* * *

><p><em>The young child tightly gripped the stronger hand in his.<em>

_Timidly, the kit poked his head out from behind the fluttering curtain of black, the enveloping cloth that kept him safe like a large blanket._

_The fluttering of wings, a gust of feathers carried on the rising wind, rushing around him like a small storm._

_From his safe refuge, the vulpine looked out across the phantom world. As far as his eye could see, the gray dirt plain stretched in every direction, its smooth surface nearly perfect except for a few displaced stones and grains of dust._

_Directly ahead of the fox and his ebenezer glowed the setting sun, its bottom arc just dipping below the horizon. The glowing halo bathed the empty plateau in fleeting light, causing even the slightest of protrusions to cast lengthy shadows across its surface. The silver sky was brightest around the pale sun, then gradually darkened until the darkness of night crept upon the opposite horizon, behind the pair of wanderers._

_The hand that gripped his gave him a tight squeeze. "It is time."_

_The kit hesitated, his hand lingering._

_"If I let go... will you promise me something?"_

_"What is it?" the black monolith asked._

_The fox sank his head back in the figure's billowing cloak, feeling safe and protected once again._

_"If I let go... can I stay by your side?"_

_"Of course, little one. Stay close behind, and follow me."_

_The child reluctantly let go of the ghost's hand, his fingers slowly slipping away. He stepped behind the looming figure, covering himself in the protective darkness. He felt warmth, a presence; he wasn't alone. He would never be alone._

_The figure turned his hooded head towards the kit, affirming the younger one's presence. Then, he tossed the folds of his cloak over his shoulder just as a haunting wind picked up to catch the garment like a billowing flag, causing it to wave and snap in the breeze. The sun glowed on the horizon, with thousands of miles of gray plains between them._

_In a gentle voice, he added, "Stay by me, child... and never leave..._

_"My shadow..."_

* * *

><p><strong>The End<strong>


	15. Epitaph (Postscript)

**Chapter 15: Epitaph**

**Or,**

**The Cipher**

* * *

><p>Before you continue reading, be aware that I published this final postscript simultaneously with the <em>actual <em>last chapter of _Dream's Brink –_ chapter 14, the chapter before this. So if you used the little skip-to-last-chapter-button to get here, there's probably another chapter you haven't read. Also, if you like figuring things out for yourself, this is your last chance to brag about it before I give full closure for everything below.

I'm finally freeeeeeeee! Wahooo! *Does little victory jig*

Aaaaaand I'm stuck in college now, but at least it's been fun; you can't _not _enjoy a game design major, right? Who needs to complain to Nintendo about the sucky Star Fox sequel coming out; I'll just make my own.

What, someone already did that? Crap...

* * *

><p>Ahem: Welcome to <em>Dream's Brink's <em>postscript! This last little chapter is a complete deconstruction and divulgence of the... _strange _story you just finished reading. _Dream's Brink _is so full of layers, allusions, and easter eggs that a lot of it went unnoticed. Several authors did realize some of the overarching constructs and patterns of the story, but I feel like I have to post this chapter for _Dream's Brink _to make sense, and to point out any references or hidden bits people missed.

One last thing before I dive right in to explaining _DB; _I was originally going to compile and explain everything in a final postscript last _June_. As I seriously considered canceling the story because I was bored of it (I had it on a half-hearted hiatus for a while), "Epitaph" was a fitting name. I felt sorry for canceling it, so the least I could do was explain the story to people in one last update, and then leave it at that and move on to other things. But, while I was going back over some of my old notes and chapters, I remembered my original vision for the story and finally rekindled the "flame of inspiration" again. After getting my excitement renewed for the story, I thought, "To heck with it. I might as well finish what I started," and continued from there.

The story originated when I began keeping a dream log after experiencing a series of particularly lucid dreams – an ability which I've since lost – and I considered stringing them together into a story. From there I piled on layer after layer of complexity until I ended up with this story. So, without further ado, I present you with "Epitaph" – the cipher for decoding _DB, _layer by layer.

(Full disclosure; I am not going to waste the effort proofreading this. When it's done, it's donw. Also, as of the completion if this postscript, I still have not even started writing the last two chapters of this story, soooo...)

* * *

><p><strong>Layer 1 – Reality<strong>

After publishing that last chapter, it should be pretty clear what _really _has been going on. The story starts with Fox saying goodbye to James as his father leaves on that last fateful mission – the one he never returned from. When Peppy returned alone and delivered his bad news, the death of his father crushed Fox, and he blindly ran away from home. Not paying attention to where he was running, Fox fell into the creek in his neighborhood's woods and drowned. Yes, Fox _died – _if only for an instant. But in that instant, he had a major near-death experience. It wasn't your standard NDE – the tunnel with the light at the end, visions of heaven or hell – but it did carry several similarities. For one, much of his recent life flashed before his eyes; the events he experienced in the last few weeks in real life are mirrored in the dream world, but I'll get to that later. For another, he saw several lost ones from his life, such as his father, mother, and other friends he had recently parted with. And, after Peppy pulled him out and brought him back to life, he obviously awoke from the NDE. Near death experiences were referenced pretty early on, specifically in one of the high school lectures Fox and Slippy overhear in their school. But it's not as simple as that, right? Near death experiences don't work that way; you don't enter entire dream world's while temporarily dead. What caused it?

In Infranimus, there are three actual living people, as opposed to the shades/dream versions of Fox's friends. The first is obviously Fox, but the second is his father, James. A lot of the background to this story actually comes from my first fic, _The Anomaly Collapses, _which under no circumstances are you to read. In that story, Andross constructs a certain device, the schematics of which were left behind by the Old Empire – the civilization that left ruins all around the Lylat. The device – called "The Anomaly" – allows the user to transcend time and space to a limited extant. And, after extended use and learning, the manipulation of fate. In _TAC, _after James was betrayed by Pigma and captured by Andross, Andross used James to test out the machine. During that initial test face, James used the device to appear to Fox in his dreams with the intent of helping him move on and get over the loss of his father. So, to summarize; the entire events of _DB _was James manipulating a dream world to help Fox through his supposed death, or at least separation.

Finally, the third real person in Infranimus was Morpheus, who, you probably guessed, was actually Andross. He kept a close eye on James' creation and use of the device, and generally screwed everything up by interfering with Fox and his father's relationship with a little well-placed mischief.

* * *

><p><strong>Layer 2 – Dreams<strong>

As I mentioned earlier, _DB _is partially a combination of a bunch of dreams I had in real life. Every chapter, in fact, was going to be based around a dream, but, as I added more layers to the story, it didn't really work out or fit with the other themes, so I nixed several of them. Here's a quick list so I don't waste too much time on this section:

Icelus – Based off a single dream I had in which I visited an old city in the middle of winter, with snow everywhere. I stopped by an antique shop owned by this "Ice Queen", who was probably inspired by Glinda from the Wizard of Oz. Someone had robbed the shop and taken a valuable crystal, just as Morpheus had in the story. So, I set out into the city to look for the culprit. The town square was particularly odd, as it was this open atrium contained in the hollow base of a massive clock tower. A giant pendulum hung from the ceiling, swinging back and forth nearly brushing the tops of people's heads. And, just as some angry citizens began chasing Fox and co. with guns, some crazed guys started a terrorist attack on the sqaure.

Sulam Yaakov – A combination of some other wintry dreams. In one, I climbed this mountain in a blizzard with the group of dwarves from _The Hobbit. _It actually wasn't too long after my family crossed over the Appalachians during a snow storm to visit a dying relative, where I wrote _Minutes to Midnight. _Anyway, the snow storm coupled with seeing whatever installation of the three-part _Hobbit _trilogy in December inspired the dream. Then, the scene where Fox wakes up in the inn and looks out the window with Guide references a dream where I looked outside late at night to see a bunch of weird silver animals grazing in the snow in my yard. In the last moments of the dream, an old-timey carriage raced down my street, followed by a large, black wolf chasing it.

Labyrinth – A really steep hill at my elementary school often gave me nightmares. The steep dune/hill Fox climbs to get to the Labyrinth is from one of these such dreams. I use to explore creeks a lot when I was younger, and as a result of this another common dream I had was wading through creaks full of large fish, snapping turtles, snakes, and crayfish. Not the most pleasant of dreams, I know.

* * *

><p><strong>Layer 3 – Grief<strong>

Much of the inspiration for the outline of _Dream's Brink _came from the Majora's Mask fan-theory that Link is dead through the entire game. Game Theory's _Is Link Dead in Majora's Mask? _video was what introduced me to it. Wow: it actually came out shortly before I started working on the initial idea for _DB, _so I can see why it was so influential. Take 12 minutes and just watch the video; it's pretty informative, and it will explain so much of _DB._

Back yet? Good. So, just like Majora's Mask, _Dream's Brink _is modeled after the Kübler-Ross model for dealing with loss. There are five main stages for dealing with any sort of loss, whether it be a loved one, a pet, or that one chapter of the _Hunting_ _Party_ that you lost and had to rewrite from the ground up (*shivers*): denial, anger, bargaining, loss, and acceptance. The episodes of this story correspond pretty well with these five stages:

Denial – The citizens of Icelus ignore the glacier enveloping their city and the giant clock ticking down to the big freeze, and the villagers in the Summer Festival ignore the monsters prowling on the edges of the celebration.

Anger – Taihō City is based around aimlessly venting its citizens frustration by firing off cannon shells to nowhere, and Fox angrily storms off into the desert on his own.

Bargaining – Fox makes a deal with Morpheus to wake him up if he turns in Guide, and ends up betraying him in the Labyrinth.

Sorrow – Fox and Lucid are both trapped in surreal prisons in Shallow Bay, held prisoner and paralyzed by their own despair.

Acceptance – The climax of the story where Fox finally moves on from his father's death, which allows him to escape depression and patch things up with his friends.

With each new stage of grief, I changed the cover art to reflect it; nothing too drastic, just some hue change for the most part... until this last update, of course.

* * *

><p><strong>Layer 4 – The Players<strong>

The next layer of structure to the story steals from (I prefer the term "pays homage to") the Wizard of Oz, in that every real life character has an alter-ego in the dream world. In James and Vixy's cases, Fox gets to say goodbye one last time, while also growing to understand them more. For Slippy, Fara, and Peppy, he learns to treat them like friends and how to patch things up with them. Often, encounters with these friends are mirrored in the dream world.

James/Guide – Guide, or Somniadux, is the first character Fox meets in Infranimus, and is the dream version of his father. He shares many characteristics with his alter-ego, but this is a result of him actually _being _Fox's father in the real world, and not a construct that Fox's unconscious mind put together. Besides wanting to help Fox let go of him, James learns a lesson himself; that his blind pursuit of vengeance was what killed him and left Fox alone. This was made evident through his constant struggle to outrun/outfight his demons in story – represented by the black wolf. At the end, Fox stops blaming himself for what happened and instead realizes it was his father's fault.

The second struggle Fox has with his father is always being in his shadow. _DB _starts out with Vixy saying she wanted Fox to grow up to be like James – with her dying words, no less. Such a desire weighed heavily on Fox, pressuring him to be more independent, to take care of his friends and fend for himself, though he could never be like his father and lead the Star Fox team until after he died. A common motif throughout _DB _is Fox literally standing in James/Guide's shadow. It starts at the airbase when James casts a shadow over Fox (which is especially relevant considering James is about to lead his team and become a hero), and is repeated throughout the story as Guide continues to cast shadows over him. To drive this point home even more, Fox is technically always in a shadow, as the sun is always blocked in Infranimus.

Besides these main themes, there are a couple other similarities between the two versions of James; Guide's face is always hidden behind his hood, much like James' face is hidden behind his signature sunglasses. And second, Guide leaves to hunt down Morpheus much like James left with Peppy to find Andross.

Vixy/Heramor – Though Vixy only makes a few appearances at the very beginning of the story and a couple of times at the start of a few chapters, she makes a big impact on Fox. Being the first person Fox lost, her death left a big gap in Fox's heart, making him cling to and rely on James all the more. Thus, _DB _isn't only about Fox getting over his father's death, but his mother's as well.

Dreams are especially important to Vixy, as she has so many unfulfilled wishes for Fox. The first – how she wanted to see him grow up like James – has already been discussed. Her second wish was for Fox to one day find a woman and get married, as she conveyed in the first scene of _DB. _She expresses this desire while holding a crystal ornament containing a violet. Anyone catch that? A _Krystal _ornament? A _violet _trapped inside? You know, because violets are blue? They aren't? Well, close enough. Yes, the crystal ornament that Vixy examines in the first chapter is a hidden reference to Krystal. This is also carried over into the dream world, when Heramor – her dream version – has the ornament stolen from her by Morpheus. Fox later finds the ornament in his walking castle and pockets it instinctively, but breaks it upon trying to break free from Sage. After Fox wakes up and the story flashes forwards a few years, he keeps the crystal on the dashboard of the _Great Fox, _which he presumably dug up from his mother's old belongings.

Vixy gets the most story time, however, in these four, strange little scenes interspersed throughout the story. He experiences the first upon entering Infranimus, in which Vixy reveals his death to him. The second comes the morning of the Summer Festival, where Vixy explains his time spent in Infranimus will be his second chance – a rebirth. In that dream sequence, that dream within a dream, Fox is surrounded by dark walls, a throbbing heart-beat pounding in his ears, and a dim red glow seeping in through the walls. Put the pieces together yet? He's dreaming of his mother's womb. This also mirrors the absence of the sun in Infranimus; he doesn't see the sun again until he is reborn, or wakes up in the last chapter, literally popping out of the water.

Slippy/Rem – Fox's only living friends (Slippy, Fara, and Sage) all had falling outs with him in the real world, a bitter parting where they left each other not on the best note. These three partings are exactly reflected in the dream world. In the second chapter, Fox doesn't stand up for Slippy when the bullies make fun of him, which is reflected in Infranimus when the moles laugh at Rem for being scared of the white rabbit. But Fox doesn't mess it up the second time; he stands up for Rem when the government of Taihō City threatened to exile him. This carries back into the real world, as Fox learns from Infranimus and stops Falco from bullying Slippy.

Fara/Lucid – Fox messes things up with Fara when he doesn't stay to save her one last time during their make-believe games. Fara runs away crying, feeling rather worthless when Fox gives up on her, even if it is just a game and he already "saved her" multiple times. In the dream world, though Fox saves Lucid from the wolves the first time they meet, he fails to save her a second time when she falls into the hands of Morpheus. To make up for this, Fox persevered and helped Lucid escape the prison of tears in Shallow Bay. And, in real life, when Fara is captured by space pirates targeting Phoenix industries, Fox sets off with Star Fox to save her once again.

Peppy/Sage – Sage was a little more difficult to identify as Peppy. The biggest tip-off was that he was Guide's close friend, though others were his drooping ears, old age, and, well, him being a hare... though I didn't describe him as one until Shallow Bay. Peppy was unlucky enough to have to deliver the news of James' death to Fox, but having to take the young kit in and become his father figure was especially hard, considering that Fox would likely never except him. Their unfortunate parting was mirrored in the Shallow Bay chapter, where Fox refused to accept Sage as his new guide and instead ran away, drowning exactly as he did right after fleeing Peppy. This was remedied, of course, when Fox finally let Sage lead him out of Infranimus and in the real world when Fox actively listens to Peppy's advice.

Andross/Morpheus – Andross is the one character who makes an appearance and completely ruins everything. His persona was already set up by James, and he started out with a bad reputation among the shades of Infranimus. His only purpose in Infranimus was to keep an eye on James' activities and enjoy the world he created, though he later saw it as a chance to screw with James, his rival. In reality, he thinks the whole thing is rather ridiculous. Andross is confused when Fox refers to him as "Morpheus", but he quickly catches on to the entire alter-ego thing. He is even more confused when Fox doesn't have an alternate name himself. Though he ends up causing trouble for both James and Fox, he ultimately leads both of the foxes to truths they never would have found: he reveals to James his fault for seeking vengeance and abandoning Fox, while teaching Fox that bargaining to thwart death is not an option.

Workmen/IDS – The Infranimus Dreamscaping Service of moles served several purposes: they served as comic relief, especially with Alistair's repeated deaths, a source of surrealism that emphasized the dream aspect of Infranimus, and a bunch of background characters to make the quest size larger. I often dream of being part of a large group of people when my dream revolves around some sort of mission or quest, most of whom are faceless. The moles took their place. Fox sees their alter-egos only one time in the real world, when James drives him past a crew of workmen doing roadwork. That one instance was enough to provide a basis for them in Infranimus.

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><p><strong>Layer 5 – Allusions<strong>

_ Dream's Brink _is basically one big mixing pot of different media works. Through the story structure and the content of the separate chapters, I steal plenty of ideas fro – er, I mean, I _pay homage _to several different movies, video games, and songs. Let's take a look.

Majora's Mask – I've already mentioned how _DB _follows the same Kübler-Ross model inspired by Game Theory's _Link is Dead _video.

The Wizard of Oz – Though this was more of an original idea and something I noticed after I planned it out, the structure of Fox patching things up with his three friends in the dream world and learning from his experiences in the real one mimics Dorthy and her adventure with the dream versions of her three farmhands: the Scarecrow, Tin-man, and the Lion.

The Children Who Chase LostVoices_ – _an anime film that was highly influential in my drive to write _DB_. The feels from that movie... I highly recommend it, or at least just Google the title and check out some of the images. The movie influenced the journey to Agartha, the description of the actual Dream's Brink as a giant circular cliff side into nothingness, and the Incan scenery in the Labyrinth.

Cannon Fodder – an anime short film part of the _Memories _anthology. It's only twenty minutes, so it won't take much effort to sit through it. This short film inspired the city of Taihō and its whole dystopian theme.

Alice in Wonderland – really just the white rabbit they have to follow.

Limbo – a dark indie platformer game I borrowed from a friend on Steam. It's a dark game with extreme shadows and lighting, which plainly influenced the cover of _DB. _I also tried to mimic Limbo in the descriptions of Infranimus – Dimlight forest in particular.

Howl's Moving Castle – a classic Ghibli anime. This movie influenced the gooey black wolves and Morpheus' walking steampunk castle.

With Any Sort of Certainty – Specifically Toh Kay's music video. Watch it; it's only five minutes long and I promise it's not metalcore – it's quiet acoustic. Look for repeated imagery throughout the video, such as the red circle. It's freaking everywhere. And, if you listen to the lyrics, you'' realize how the music video inspired many of the themes and quotes in the story. Other songs from the Streetlight Manifesto album, _The Hands That Thieve, _also inspired the themes in the story.

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><p><strong>Layer 6 – The Little Things<strong>

And, to top it all off, here is a list of all the hidden easter eggs and references in the story you may have missed.

James line about not knowing where the soul goes when it dies, and Guide's quote about not knowing where the sun goes at night are both references to different verses of "With Any Sort of Certainty."

The lesson Fox and Slippy are in at the beginning of chapter 2 is about the "common enemy," one of the main themes echoed in the Cannon Fodder chapter.

The school is preparing a summer festival, which inspires Fox's dream of a summer festival on top of mount Sulam Yaakov.

Fox dropping the crystal ornament when running away from Sage mirrors his breaking the vase in his house before running away from Peppy. Both scenes were inspired by Linkin Park's "Castle of Glass" music video.

While running from Peppy, Fox recalls a story his mother used to tell him. Here's the excerpt: "Running made him remember an old story his mother used to tell him; a group of outcasts in the Lylat one day gave up on the System. They commandeered a suitable space ship, packed their bags, and then retreated into the deep, infinite void of space. They simply left all of their problems behind as they forged on, in hopes of finding a new world that would accept them. His mother died before she could tell him the end. He never knew if they actually found it." Though this little tid-bit previews what Fox is about to experience in Infranimus (running from death), it is also a reference to one of my unwritten stories. This is the basic premise of _Escap__e –_what would have been my sequel to _Minutes to Midnight. _Assuming you've read it, it would pick up with the newly formed Star Fox team rescuing Dash Bowman from the military and running away, leaving the Lylat System behind for good. I never ended up writing it, as the outline was too basic and open. It never really solidified.

In chapter 4, Guide says, "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" a line from Majora's Masks that's one of the biggest hints that Link is dead.

After the mole's bridge builds itself in the same chapter, Guide comments, "If your job was this easy every time, you soon would be as fat as the time Morpheus cast the bloating curse on the people of Jamadipe." Jam adipe translates to "already fat" in latin. This is a reference to _Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story_, where Fawful casts a bloating curse on all of the toads making them balloon out and roll around ridiculously. After lifting the curse, Mario and Luigi come across one toad who is still extremely fat. When they talk to him, he says, "Oh this? This is how I normally look."

Upon learning that Heramor is called the Ice Queen, Fox comments that they only have chancellors on Corneria, referencing Chancellor Turrick Ollama from my first story, _TAC. _Obviously a pun of Barack Obama.

In Heramor's antique shop, Fox notices a bunch of snow globes containing different miniature scenes: a snow-covered mountain, a summer fair, a dirty city stuffed with cannons, and a desert, all of which previewed upcoming chapters; mount Sulam Yaakov, the Summer Festival, Taihō City, and the empty desert.

The gray pyramid justice department building in Taihō City is a reference to the Ministry of Truth from George Orwell's _1984_.

One of the moles who holds Foreman back in the Labyrinth is named "Winston," a reference to the Pepper's mole butler from my first story.

The bottomless pit in the Labyrinth is from the cartoon _Gravity_ _Falls._

In the middle of the Labyrinth chapter, "oh my god that is a giant freaking spider" is randomly inserted in a paragraph. I instinctively typed this upon finding a large spider crawling onto my couch and thought I might as well leave it in.

Guide's alternate name "Somniadux" is a combination of "somnia" and "dux," which in Latin means "dream guide."

Vixy's alter-ego's name "Heramor" likewise translates to "mistress of the dead."

Slippy's alter ego is named after REM, or "Rapid Eye Movement," which is both a stage of sleep where most dreams occur and a reference to his nervous eye-movements that I always picture him having.

Vixy's alter-ego "Lucid" is named after lucid dreams, just because it sounds like a good feminine name.

Sage's alternate name "Oneir" is a reference to oneirology, the scientific study of dreams.

Morpheus is named after the Greek god of dreams... and _not_ Morpheus from _The Matrix._

Icelus City is named after Icelus, one of the Greek personifications of dreams.

Mount Sulam Yaakov is the Hebrew name for Jacob's Ladder, where Jacob dreams of a tall ladder that reaches to heaven.

Taihō City is named after the Japanese word for "cannon."

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><p>*Deep breath*... Whoooooo. Wow, glad I finally got all of that off my chest. I don't know how you guys feel about revealing all of a stories secrets at the end, but I hope it increases your appreciation of the story. I always enjoy watching videos of lists of easter eggs in games, so maybe you enjoyed reading this. I dunno. But hey, at least you made it through the story, right? Thanks for that much, and thanks for anyone who reviewed, followed, and favorited. I know this isn't the most popular story, but you guys gave me the motivation to keep going and finish this bad-boy.<p>

Geez, I still don't have a catch-phrase or anything. How about this...

**Wubba-lubba-dub-dub****!**


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